Happy New Year!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love, 

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Elder Layton works hard!! :)

Helping the Munoz get ready to move.

Our awesome New Year's Eve party...

Merry Christmas!

     Hello and Merry Christmas to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving worldwide! Hope everyone had a great Christmas with friends and family! I know I sure did! Christmas on the mission is awesome and I’m sad I just had my last one. We’ve had a busy week so let’s get going on that!

     Monday was our p-day, and we went to the Mall of America again as a district! I didn’t get anything except a flat penny from Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for my sisters for Christmas. We had a blast at the mall so that was pretty fun! Sister Gretz came to say what’s up to us as well and drop off some presents and some oranges for us! Thanks, Sister Gretz, for the awesome gifts! After that we took the Princeton Elders home and then had dinner and a lesson with the Johnson family. They live in Delano and were recently reactivated in the ward so they LOVE the missionaries. It was pretty crazy at their house. Their daughter was home from college, and she had a friend over too, so there was a lot of people there. Elders Woolley and Layton were just having a party with all of their kids and I was like, what is going on?? So we finally got things calmed down and were able to get things focused on the gospel haha. After that we stopped by a few less actives in Delano and Rockford, but the ones that were home said come back after the holidays, so we are going to do that for sure!

     Tuesday morning we went to Walmart and made our Christmas cards for everyone. There is a picture below to check out. We gave a bunch to the Hutch and Buffalo members and sent a few home to the fam and friends and stuff.  They’re pretty funny and now like the whole mission is copying our idea to make Christmas cards.  And a lot of them are like the exact same as ours, so we were like, what the heck? We also got all our Christmas presents put together to send home and got those mailed out. We did some stop bys up in Monticello and knocked some doors as well. Not a whole lot of success other than cleaning up the ward directory of who still lives in the area and who has moved! We knocked this street in Buffalo and found this guy who was a Lutheran and he was super nice and talked to us on the door step for like 10-15 minutes. We talked about the Book of Mormon with him and what it is. He had some super good questions and was like, “Props to you guys for being out in the cold trying to share this with people.” He said we could come back after the holidays as well since he said they were going to be pretty busy and weren’t sure when they were going to be home. Hopefully that can turn into something in the next few weeks! Haha the last house on the right side of the street was Elder Layton’s turn to talk at the door. So this pretty attractive girl comes to the door and he says, “Hey! Is your Mom or Dad here?” The girl was at least 20 years old. She was like “Uhhhh....” then Elder Layton just dives into this super awkward restoration lesson. She was just like “I’m not interested! Thanks though!” Elder Woolley and I were dying.  We were like, “Dude, why did you ask if her mom was home? She was like at least 20 years old.” He’s like, “Guys! I thought she was like 16!” It was so funny because she was definitely not 16. Pretty funny stuff, haha. After that we had dinner with the Snidarich family and it was a riot as usual. Elders Layton and Woolley ask every family we eat with now if I look like a monster and have a scary face. Sister Sniderich was like, “I just always wonder if you're mad at me or something because you always look pissed off.” Everyone thought that was pretty funny, including me. So I guess I do look like a monster or whatever because literally everyone says that I look scary. After dinner with them we stopped by the Lillers really quick and dropped off a Christmas card for them. We got to talk to Brother Liller for a little bit and his wife talked to us for like the whole time we were there, too, so that was good! After that we drove up to the Bradys to drop off a Christmas card to them because they were heading to California for the Christmas break. They got us water bottles and some protein bars that are super good for Christmas, so that was a score. Chase was also there and we set up a lesson with him for Wednesday night!

     Wednesday morning we cleaned up the apartment the entire morning because it was thrashed from baking Christmas goodies for people and from all our packages and getting our packages ready to send out. So we cleaned for about an hour and half and then had lunch at 11:30 am and got out the door around 12:30 pm. We had a meeting with Aaron Scherer because he literally calls and texts us every single day to ask if we can come over and play video games with him. We basically just tell him we are busy every day and we finally caved and were like, “Ok Aaron, we can come over for 45 minutes but we aren’t going to play video games. If you want to play cards we can do that, but we are going to talk about the gospel and no video games!” So we played this card game that Elder Meyer and I played with the Strams up in Sauk Rapids. It was fun, Aaron was very happy we came over haha. It’s hard for me in those situations because I feel like it’s a waste of time to just go play cards with Aaron and be his friend, but then I wonder what Christ would do if he was presented with the opportunity. I figured he would go love Aaron and be his friend and share the gospel with him. So we went over and played cards and were buddies with him and tried to share the gospel, but man, he gets off on some tangents, so it’s not always the best haha. After that we had a lesson with the Thibodeaus who live up in Clearwater. They are both converts and they have a son named Shennen who still lives with them because he has MS I think, and is in a wheelchair. He isn’t baptized, but I know his parents want him to be. So we talked to them and got to know them and he is really cool! He’s a good dude and has a good heart. I’m excited to work with him and hopefully we can help him progress towards getting baptized. After that we stopped at a frozen lake really quick so Elder Layton could run on it because he’s never been on a frozen lake before. We stopped by the Simonettes after that. They had no record except the Dad wasn’t a member of the church. So we stopped by and met Sister Simonette and helped her decorate her Christmas tree because it was huge and she couldn’t reach it. They have 3 girls, all of whom are married and out of the house. Brother Simonette wasn’t home from work yet, so we didn’t get to meet him, but she told us to come back another time and he would be happy to chat with us. So that was a good visit too. After that we stopped by the Marshals really quick before dinner and ended up taking a walk with Sister Marshal and their dog. We got to talk to her and we found out she joined the church about 6 years ago and now is kind of less active. She loves the missionaries, so we definitely need to work with their family. Brother Marshal wasn’t feeling super good so we didn’t see him unfortunately. After that we had some dinner really quick and then headed to the church to have a lesson with Chase.  It was really good, he had a lot of questions and we basically taught the restoration of the gospel and the plan of salvation. He’s a cool dude and we are all friends on Facebook now. After we got done with the lesson we ended up just sitting by the door at the church and talking for like 30 minutes. I felt like that was really good because he opened up a lot and he feels like we are just normal dudes he can trust so that was good!

     Thursday morning we had interviews up in St. Cloud with President Barney. He’s such a good guy! I love President and Sister Barney. They are awesome! So we did those and then we went to Boot Barn up in St. Cloud so I could get some boot leather conditioner. The winter and the salt here get pretty bad on your shoes and boots so you have to keep them good! After that we drove back down to Buffalo and then did some tracting and didn’t see much success there. I find it odd at Christmas that people almost seemed more turned off to our message about Christ. Something my dad said to me about being on a mission is when you go door to door and it’s colder than heck and no one wants to talk to you, it builds your own testimony more than anything. You constantly are saying to yourself, "I believe in this and I know this is true." When you’re doing that day after day, sharing your testimony day after day, it really solidifies what you know to be true! So that part has been really cool for me. After that Brother Ostvig took us to Culver’s for dinner. I got the $9 salad again. I got a different one, but it was super good! I really liked it. After that we had a lesson with Paul and Melissa. We usually just read the Book of Mormon with them. So this time we did that but we just straight up asked Melissa where she’s at with meeting with us and if she wants to get baptized. She said for now, she just wants to have us keep coming over and reading with them and that kind of stuff. She said she is comfortable where she’s at for right now. I was sad to hear that, but I’m hoping as we just keep reading the Book of Mormon with her and she keeps coming to church, she will realize this is the right path for her! After that we did some stop bys in Buffalo and struck out with all those, but it was 8:30 pm haha. 

     Friday we did some knocking in the morning and it was pretty good! We gave away a few Books of Mormon and had some good conversations with people. So I was happy we had some good success with that! After that we had some lunch and then started our weekly planning. Weekly planning was crazy this week because we had to get all our weekend planned and all the logistical stuff squared away because we were going to be in Hutch for Christmas Eve, part of Christmas, and then come back to Delano for Christmas dinner with the Polls. So we were coordinating who we were going to visit on Christmas Eve in Hutch and all that good stuff.  After we got done with that, we had dinner with the Koschadi family. Their son had some questions about heaven and hell, so we were able to talk about the Plan of Salvation with them and use the packet Mom sent us for Light the World. It was solid! So that was good. They didn’t come to church on Sunday, which was sad. I’m not sure what we are going to do with them because they just don’t keep their commitments. We will keep trying with them though! After that we had a Christmas caroling party at Bishop Grover’s house. It was super fun and we had a good time with some families from the ward! So that was really fun. I thought it was good to build that relationship with Bishop and Sister Grover because I haven’t felt like we’ve been super tight with them. But that helped a lot so I was glad we could go to that! After that it was about 9 pm so we had to head on home and call it a night.

     Saturday was crazy haha.  We knocked some doors for about an hour and half in the morning in Monticello and it was awesome. Heavenly Father gave us a Christmas present on Saturday. We gave out like 6 Books of Mormon and met some way cool people and had a great time! It was awesome! It was super cold and my hands were freezing when we got done. ️ But it was worth the success we had! After that we started baking cookies and banana bread for members we were visiting on Sunday. I started working on the Christmas video we made that was basically a 2017 highlight video. If you want to see it, hit up my Mom or Dad! It’s pretty good if I say so myself. We found out Elder Woolley's Christmas package got delivered in the morning but we weren’t there and it was in Maple Grove at the FedEx place. So we had to drive to Maple Grove and pick it up because we weren’t going to be anywhere near there until the 27th.  So that was a little crazy, but we got the package and all the goodies baked. After that we met with Brother Archibald at the church to help him out with some family history. We made a cool discovery: his grandpa came across the plains in the Thomas E. Ricks handcart company. Thomas E. Ricks is my great great great grandpa! So that was a way cool connection we made. So our ancestors came to Utah together and now we were in Minnesota together. It was pretty sweet! He told us he would be able to make it to church on Sunday so that was great to hear! After that we had some dinner and called it a night.

     Sunday was wild. Brother Archibald came to church and sat with us so that was great! He really enjoyed it and all the High Priests were all over him and they hit it off super quick! It was great! After church we had brunch with the De St. Joers down in Montrose. Brother De St. Joer is a cool dude. He does like FBI stuff on food. So he had some way cool stories about investigative things he does with food and all kinds of stuff like that. He is the only person in the US that does what he does and he basically invented his field of work. He also does some crazy carvings and showed us some of his carvings he does. He carved a chain out of a single block of wood. Look it up online. It’s so crazy. I don't know how people do that but he did! He’s quite the cool dude haha. After that we met with Brother Constans in Lester Prairie and Elder Woolley got the tour of the house. We dropped off a Christmas card for him and then dropped off a card to the Jacobs and then visited with Lloyd Thurn really quick. After that we went to the Munoz to drop off some banana bread for them and some cards and we ended up getting invited in to their Christmas Eve party and got a bunch of food and good stuff. Angel called my family and FaceTimed them haha. It was pretty funny.  My dad had a good time speaking some Espanol with Brother Munoz haha. We had a good time with them and I love their family so much! After the party we headed up to our apartment in Hutch and opened one present. We read the nativity in Luke 2 and Matthew 2 and then headed to bed! 

     I’ll write about Christmas in my email next week, but it was great to see my family! I love you guys and I’m glad we could talk and catch up for a while. Being on a mission has been great for me because it has made me realize that Christmas is about being with family, remembering the Savior and emanating his light to others. The presents and all that are cool, but it’s really about just being together with those you love and spending quality time together. I’m grateful I got to spend a few hours with my family over FaceTime. I’m so grateful to be out here sharing the gospel and serving those people of Minnesota. It’s been such a great 18 months for me, and I’m excited for the next 6. It’s going by so fast , it’s crazy. I know the church is true and the Book of Mormon is as well. I know Jesus Christ lives and he is our Savior and Redeemer. I’m grateful for His willingness to leave his Father's presence to come to earth and be born into the humblest of circumstances and do all that He did for us. His love for us is unfailing and unending. I know this to be true! Merry Christmas to all, I hope you all have a great New Year as well!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Merry Christmas from the "Hutchallo" Elders!

With Brother Archibald at church.

The 3 Amigos!

Talking to my family via FaceTime!

Elders Woolley and Layton talking to their families on Christmas.

Walking on the frozen lake.

The Munoz family Christmas Eve dinner.

Elders Woolley and Layton opening their gift on Christmas Eve.

It's starting to get cold!  -5 degrees.

Helping at a soup kitchen on Christmas. 

Christmas party.

'Twas the week before Christmas!

     Hello to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at college and serving the Lord around the globe. Hope this email finds you well and enjoying life and this awesome Christmas time of year! I hope you all have been able to participate in the #LightTheWorld campaign on LDS.org. It is awesome! Just wanted to thank my mom for sending us a ton of gifts to use for the campaign. I will be sharing a few stories about how we’ve been able to use them.  This week has been pretty good, not a whole lot going on as far as finding new people. Just in kind of a slow stretch with that, but we’ve been able to contact a lot of less actives and stuff so that’s been great!

     Last Monday we had a p-day and just went to the church and played some ball (basketball and football), and that was pretty fun! I still got the baller skills going in both of those haha.  So that was good! We did some emailing and went to Walmart and Target and walked around for a while just killing time. We didn’t have a dinner so we decided to do that at 8 pm because if you don’t have stuff that’s the hardest time to fill. Our appointment with Paul and Melissa fell through and so did our one with Dan Adomnicai.  Buffalo has a lot of investigators but none of them are solid, so I’m guessing we probably are going to drop them and start from the ground up again. I’ve done that in pretty much every area I’ve served in, so I’m excited to do it again! So we ended up doing some finding Monday night and then stopped by a few less actives we didn’t know. We stopped by this one guy named Marcus. He was super nice and let us in. He is currently Catholic now, I don’t know why. He said he grew up in the LDS church in Arizona but didn’t really stay active. So a few years ago he and his wife converted to Catholicism. He told us if he would’ve been baptized in any other church (Lutheran, Methodist, etc) the Catholic church said he didn’t need to get baptized again into their church. It just counted already. He said since he was baptized Mormon and we don’t baptize "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” he had to be rebaptized into the Catholic church. I was like, “We do baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” He’s like, “But you don’t believe in the trinity so it’s different. I don’t fully understand it but I believe in it.” I was just like “Alright, whatever you say!” Then he started talking about the how both churches have the Priesthood and I was like, “Well, there’s technically only 2 churches who can CLAIM they have the Priesthood and it’s the Catholic and LDS church.” He didn’t really get my drift, but it’s cool, he can believe whatever he wants. He’s a super nice guy! After that we had some fish, brown rice, and grilled peppers. 

     Tuesday we did some tracting in Monticello and it was pretty chilly haha. We knocked this huge cul de sac and like nobody was home and the only people who answered were kinda crazy.  We had two huge fat dudes answer the door with no shirt on and that was pretty funny.  And then like one of the last doors we knocked this girl answered and told us she was a nurse and went to school in the cities and her parents were ministers at a church in Monticello. She was super nice and took a Book of Mormon and said she would read it and pray about it. So I’m really hoping she does.  After that we headed home and had some lunch and stuff. After that we had a lesson with Raul at his house. He is a dude from Cuba who’s been meeting with missionaries for years and has never gotten baptized or quit smoking or made any effort to quit smoking. He had an opportunity to move out of the place he is living into a member's house for $500, but the people he lives with dropped his rent from $600 to $400 just so he would stay there. They always buy him cigarettes and stuff. So we talked to him about maybe moving into the member's house and asked him if spending an extra $100 a month would be worth it to help him quit smoking because he won’t be around that, and having people buying him cigarettes all the time. He basically said no because it will be too hard and it won’t help him quit smoking. So I don’t know what we are going to do with him. There’s so many people here that aren’t progressing at all.  Missionaries have been teaching them consistently for months and years. It’s kind of tough for us because we come in and feel like we have a bunch of investigators but none of them are progressing. It’s kind of a bummer. But anyway, we had a good lesson with him and tried to help him realize he needs to quit smoking. After that we had like 3 stop bys in a row that we got let in and got to talk and share a Christmas message with them! So that was awesome! We stopped by this guy named Kurtis. He had no info on his teaching record except that he was a member. So we stopped by and he let us in and we found out his wife isn’t a member but is kind of not super interested in the church right now. He said he wants to get back into activity in the church but his wife isn’t super interested so he is kind of playing it cool right now. We were able to share a Christmas Mormon message called, “Wise Men Still Seek Him” and invited them to do things that would help them remember the Savior this time of year. They were super cool so I hope we can help them in the future! After that we stopped by this lady named Sister Tandrian. She also had no info on her teaching record. So we pulled up and she was outside putting up some Christmas lights so we helped her with those and then went inside and shared the Mormon message we shared with Kurtis with her and her significant other. They really liked it and she said missionaries used to come over a lot and she would feed them quite often but they hadn’t been coming over much anymore. So hopefully we can get back over there more! After that we had some dinner and called it a night!

     Wednesday morning I went and got an x ray on my shoulder because the insurance needs me to do an x ray before I can get an MRI which is kind of dumb, but it is what it is.  So I got to talk to the nurse doing my x rays quite a bit about missionary work and the church because she didn’t know much about it! So that was cool.  After that we had district meeting and then had some lunch. After that we went up to Clearwater and stopped by like pretty much everyone in the town and didn’t find anyone new or anything haha. We found that several people had moved but that was about it.  After that we knocked some doors for a while and then went and picked up some money for dinner from the Marschels and then went to Subway. Subway is my fav, I love it haha. After that we met with Brother Archibald at the church and helped him get his Patriarchal blessing requested on lds.org. We also did some family history work with him and got his whole side of his family tree filled out back like a couple hundred years haha. After that we got invited to do a YM activity where we did a Q&A with the YM where they asked us like basically any question they wanted about being a missionary, preparing for a mission, etc. It was really fun, and I think it helped them a lot. I don’t ever remember doing stuff like that for young men’s, but I would’ve liked to do that before I left on a mission. So it was really good, and Elder Layton was a hoot, so everyone loved that haha. He’s the comic relief of the trio. 

     Thursday was a great day! We went to Willmar and Hutch for the day and had some great successful lessons there. We met with Sister Christensen in the morning in Cokato. She is a less active lady in the Hutch Branch and so we got to meet with her and shared a Christmas message with her and gave her a little nativity that my mom sent. Mom, those were awesome! We’ve given them out to less actives and investigators and they’ve been a hit.  So we visited with her and then drove to Litchfield and had some lunch at Subway again haha, and then stopped by Rocky in Litchfield. She’s the older lady Elder Layton and I found our first transfer in Hutch. She let us in and we taught her the whole restoration lesson and it was great! She said she felt really good about everything we taught and we set up a time to come back in 2 weeks, so I’m way excited to teach her some more. We gave her the little nativity gift and she loved it! After that we headed out to Willmar to teach a lady named Diana, who was a referral we received who wanted a Book of Mormon and Bible. So we got there and she let us in and we were able to teach her the whole restoration, too! She was born Catholic and is currently a Jehovah's Witness and had some interesting ideas.  I’m not sure how much she really understood about the lesson.  Like as we were teaching, we would be ask her questions and stuff and her answers were like way off topic and weird haha.  But she said she wanted to read the Book of Mormon, so I’m hoping she can do that too! We also have an appointment set up with her for 2 weeks as well.  After that we headed back to Litchfield to meet with Angie, the lady we knocked into last week. She said they were really busy and couldn’t meet that night but said we could come back after Christmas. We gave her a little nativity thing and she loved it as well! After that we drove back to Monticello to meet with a less active member we found named Kristin. Her family isn’t members but are really cool! She’s married and they have 4 kids and we got to meet with her, her husband Kevin, and her kids, Alaska and Alton.  It was super good! We taught them the Plan of Salvation using the Plan of Salvation package my mom sent, so that was awesome! The kids helped us put it all together and loved it.  It was great. They are definitely someone we need to work with! After that we headed home and had some dinner and called it a night! 

     Friday we did some finding down in the southern part of Buffalo city in some newer developments, but didn’t have much luck down there unfortunately.  We did help a lady catch a stray dog that was injured though,so that was kinda fun!  After that we had some lunch and then did weekly planning with some pool breaks in between.  Weekly planning is so mentally draining. You have to take breaks like every hour or you die basically haha. You’re just so focused on who you’re going to work with, where you’re going to be, when, dinners, what you’re going to teach, coordinating between two areas, etc. It's just draining haha but it’s good because it makes weeks go much more smoothly! After we got done we stopped by a referral down in Montrose that we got a while back. We had previously set up appointments to drop off a Bible and Book of Mormon and she wouldn’t ever be there when we’d go. Same thing happened Friday night, so that was a bummer, but it is what it is! After that we had dinner with the Elwoods. Weirdest thing happened to me while we were there: I just was sitting there eating dinner and I just got super hot. Like I was dripping sweat so I took my sweater off and went out on their back deck to cool off. So I was out there for like 5 minutes and was still hot. Then I just started getting freezing cold so I came back inside and was freezing for like 10 minutes then got way hot again, then just went back to normal. It was super weird.  I don't know what happened, but it hasn’t happened since then, so that’s good. After that we went and saw the Aeblys in Delano. They’re a less active family that loves the Elders. We stopped by and they let us in and it was a riot. Sister Aebly was just telling us all the stuff going on in her life and then Brother Aebly comes in and just starts roasting all his kids and we are just like, what the heck is going on? While all this chaos is happening, their two dogs are fighting and trying to eat each other and then the other one just sits right in front of me and stares at me but won’t let me pet it. Such a funny experience! Then they just were like, “Oh crap! We gotta go to gymnastics! We are way late!” So they almost just left us in the house and took off.  Pretty nuts! We are going to their house on Christmas evening to spend some time with them, so that should be fun! 

     Saturday was a good day, too! We had a lunch with the Bradys and their oldest daughter Natalie has a friend named Chase who is checking out the church, so he was there, too! Elder Layton was the star of the show again and had everyone in tears with his Nacho Libre impressions and Napoleon Dynamite impressions. Sister Brady loved it haha.  We taught them a really simple restoration lesson and asked Chase if he had any questions. He has been to church once already and the Bradys are way solid member missionaries, so we figured he’d been taught some stuff already about the Book of Mormon and the restoration. He said he didn’t have any but he showed up at church the next day with a big old list of questions for us. We are meeting this week to answer them! So that’s been a huge miracle here for us, and hopefully Chase can keep progressing! After that we did a bunch of stop bys to people nobody knew and met some crazy people. Like insane haha.  So we stopped by this one guy and he just goes off about how the church is the most corrupt thing, and he doesn’t believe in the church's stance on gay marriage, and “Can’t support a church that spends so much money on temples but not any on humanitarian aid.” I almost said, “Didn’t the church just donate over a billion dollars to the hurricane relief in Florida and the Caribbean?” But I figured it wouldn’t do any good. The dude was pretty set that the church was not for him and some day we would realize it isn’t true.  Poor guy! After that we stopped by this lady that apparently is a hoarder lady. Her whole house is full of stuff and she literally has tunnels to walk through. We met in this old trailer in her yard that was freezing cold and she talked to us for an hour and half straight about how the ward and county was in cahoots to kick her out of her house. It was pretty nuts some of the stuff she was talking about, but we just listened and then had a prayer with her. She was very happy we came to visit her! We will be taking her the socks my mom sent us because she definitely needs them! After that we went to a gas station to get some gas and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate regular flavor thing was broken so they gave us free any size hot chocolate and I got some mint hot chocolate and it was so good! Haha tasty stuff.  After that we knocked some doors and found some pretty cool people. We met this one Hispanic dude outside shoveling his driveway, so we stopped to help him and he was super nice and declined the offer, but we gave him a Book of Mormon and our card and he said we could swing by this week and share some more with his family! So that was pretty cool! Kinda sad story: Brother Archibald called us Saturday morning to tell us his wife had passed away. She had been in a nursing home for like 2-3 years and wasn’t doing super hot. We met with him at the church Saturday night and found that his Patriarchal blessing had been found and was available on his lds.org account. He was able to read it for the first time in 15 years and was in tears as he did so. It was a tender mercy that it happened to get there so quickly and seemingly right when he needed it most. He said there were a lot of things in it he really needed to read at that moment. It was really cool but super sad, too. He seemed to be doing pretty well all things considered. The High Priests Group Leader visited him Sunday after church to check in on him, too.

     Sunday was great! Chase came to church so that was sweet! Brother Brady got called as the Elder's Quorum President, so he’s the man now. President Baker came down to set him apart, so I got to talk to him for a while. He’s such a good dude. I love President Baker! He was in the Sauk Rapids Ward when I was up there. He’s the St. Cloud Stake President right now. So after church we had lunch really quick and then finished up our stop bys in Monticello that we didn’t get to the night before. We met some pretty nice people and found a few people who didn’t live at the address listed for them. We stopped by this one girl who was listed as a member but was age 12-17 and no one else was listed as living with her. So we stopped by and her sister answered the door. Her sister was like 20ish and was super nice but was like, “I have no idea if she’s a member or not so I’ll have her give you a call!” We got to talk to her sister a little bit so that was good! Definitely need to get in there and figure out what the heck is happening there haha.  After that we headed down to Delano and knocked some doors for about an hour. We gave out 2 Books of Mormon and one lady was super nice and seemed pretty interested so that was good. After that we had dinner at the Poll's house and then went out chiming with them to some less actives and non members in Delano and Rockford. That was way fun! We had a blast with them and the Sniderich family.  We talked to sister Poll after about the hoarder lady (Sister Reisewitz) and she said that people had been trying to help her and visit her for like 10 years and it was just hard because she was hard to work with and easily got offended. She said many, many efforts had been made by the ward to fellowship her and stuff, so I’m probably going to take Sister Poll's word for it because she is on the ball with stuff like that. We stopped by a few less actives after that in Rockford but most of them were like, “It’s 8:30 pm! Come back earlier!”  If you don’t have anything going on at 8 pm as a missionary in the winter in Minnesota, it’s kinda rough because people tend to basically hibernate in the winter haha. ️ But it’s all good! Part of the fun of being a missionary!

     I’ve done a lot of thinking about a few verses of scripture in 3 Nephi 27 that I’ve read this week: 

9 Verily I say unto you, that ye are built upon my gospel; therefore ye shall call whatsoever things ye do call, in my name; therefore if ye call upon the Father, for the church, if it be in my name the Father will hear you;

10 And if it so be that the church is built upon my gospel then will the Father show forth his own works in it.

11 But if it be not built upon my gospel, and is built upon the works of men, or upon the works of the devil, verily I say unto you they have joy in their works for a season, and by and by the end cometh, and they are hewn down and cast into the fire, from whence there is no return.

     In Branch Council in Hutch we had a good discussion about these verses and I’ve pondered them a lot recently. Verse 11 really sticks out to me. Many people we talk to say, “Oh, I’ve already got a church. I’m comfortable in my faith or I’m comfortable where I’m at right now.” Basically saying I have joy in my works for a season. Everyone can have joy in their works for a season. But by and by the end cometh and they are hewn down and cast into fire. If we are in the church of Jesus Christ, we are built upon his gospel, and his Priesthood. We will always have joy in our works, in this life and the next life, because of the fact that we are built upon his church and his gospel. That was something that really hit home with me. You can find joy anywhere for a short amount of time. But when the trials come or the end comes, the only place we can find true, lasting joy is in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know this is His church and is led by living prophets and apostles. I know the Book of Mormon is true and is the keystone of our religion and our testimonies of Christ.  I love serving here in Minnesota and inviting others to partake of this gospel and come unto Christ and be perfected in him! It is truly amazing. I love you all, have a great week and Merry Christmas!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

The three amigos!

Christmas in Minnesota!

Checking out all the decorations.

At the Mall of America.  I got my boots for Christmas!

Near an elk ranch.

Elder Woolley - the one with the nice face... :)