Sun's out, guns out

      What’s up to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying the beautiful spring weather that is finally here.  I’m pretty sure we are in the clear in Minnesota as far as spring goes. It’s been in the 60’s and sunny this last week and has been awesome to be outside talking to people. This week's been pretty good! We got “My Plan” this week, which is what you work on your last transfer of your mission to prepare you to go home. I don't know why they send it out so early because then people get trunky (not me) but it seems to have that affect on some people haha. 

     Monday we had p-day and Elder Peterson’s birthday party! The Spanish District and the Eden Prairie Elders came to the church to play some board games and stuff and hang out. The Perezes brought some Little Caesar’s pizza and stuff and the North Hermanas baked a cake for him. It was super fun and we played Mafia like 4 times haha. It was getting pretty wild and he was the narrator, so you know it was fun haha. After that we helped Sister Tolbert move a bunch of huge chairs and couches in her house outside because they are redoing the floor. Then we had a lesson with the Ludwigs that was less than stellar. I’m pretty sure we mutually dropped each other after the lesson.  We were super blunt with them and I don’t think they liked that much. Basically all they do is give us these bible verses to read and then ask for our explanation of what it means and then bible bash with us. Also, Galatians chapter 3 is talking about the freakin' law of Moses. They think it means “the law”, meaning you don't do anything past saying you believe in Christ. Then they tried to explain that it isn’t talking about the law of Moses, which it obviously is. We talked about how we need to be baptized and they both were like, “Yeah, it says that in the Bible, but we don’t think it’s necessary. God will decide.” I just shared my testimony of the Book of Mormon and how I know it’s true and because of that, I know that we need to be baptized by proper Priesthood authority to receive salvation. Then they started trying to bible bash again, and I was like, “Look, wasn’t the reason you wanted to meet with us so you could learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?” They said yes. I was like, “Ok, well basically all we do when we come over is debate biblical scriptures or get grilled with stupid questions you have about really nit picky stuff.  So if you want to learn about what we believe, but you don’t want to listen to us teach it to you, read the Book of Mormon.” They’re like, “Oh well, we don’t subscribe to the Book of Mormon. We don’t believe it’s true.” I was like, “Have you ever read it?” They’re like, “Uhhhh.... no....” I was like, “Ok well that’s like me reading the Bible and saying it isn’t true. So read the Book of Mormon and ask God if it’s true.” That was pretty much the end of the lesson and I don’t think they were super thrilled about it. 

     Tuesday we took the Spanish Elders up to Maple Grove to get Elder Cross's bike fixed. The Spanish Elders bike full time so he definitely needs his bike to be working. His crankshaft and gears were all messed up so they got him fixed up and now he’s good to go. After that we did a bunch of stop bys and did some tracting as well. I don’t really remember a whole lot from Tuesday haha.  It’s been a long week!

     Wednesday was pretty fun! We went to the Waconia District meeting. They’re really struggling with finding, so we are going to do a finding training in their district meeting this week to help them out with some ideas. I literally don’t know how it’s so hard to find people. Like I’ve had areas where we found people but no one was solid after like one or two lessons, but they’re just not finding anyone period. So it’s a little tricky as to how we can help them. After that we did some stop bys in Hopkins and did some tracting as well. We tracted into Maxx Williams' sister! He played TE for the U of M, and now plays for the Ravens in the NFL. She was pretty nice and accepted a Book of Mormon. Hopefully she reads it and wants her brother to as well. haha. We knocked on this one guy's door and he comes to the door and here’s our dialogue: 

Guy: “If you’re bill collectors, get the f*** outta here!!”

Us: “We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We have an awesome message to share with you!”

Guy: “I’m Missouri Lutheran. Why the h*** would I want to know more about Christ?”

*starts to close the door*

Us: “So can we share a message with you?”

Guy: “Go **** yourselves!” 

*slams door*

Us: *die laughing*

It was pretty funny to say the least haha.  After that we headed back into the main part of our area and stopped by some more people in this town home complex. We stopped by a potential named Irene. She did not live there but this dude name DK did, and he was pretty sweet! When we told him who we were, he wasn’t super interested at first. As a zone we have a controllable goal we set each week. So ours is to invite 5 people to church every day. So we invited him to church and gave him a card. He looked at it and was like, “Oh, you guys are Mormons? Man, I think it’s dope that you have like 4 wives! That’s hype!” Elder Peterson and I looked at each other and we were both thinking, “Man, should we set him straight or just keep rolling with this?” But we told him we don’t practice polygamy anymore haha. He was a little disheartened by that, but we ended up teaching him the restoration and giving him a Book of Mormon to read! So that was pretty sweet haha. We had dinner with the Showleys and that was great. They had some game called “BayBlades” that Elder Peterson and their son played. I had no clue what it was haha.  Sister Showley had some CMU hats she didn’t use anymore, so she gave those to me! So that was pretty sweet. They’re not the best hats, so I’ll probably use them as hard work hats or just put them on my memorabilia shelf for college haha. After that we stopped by a bunch of people in the south part of our area and nobody was home.  Then we did comp study at the church and did some administrative stuff and headed home.

     Thursday was pretty sweet, too! We went to FMSC (Feed My Starving Children) for service and then exchanged with the Eden Prairie Elders. I went with Elder Salins to our area. The kid is brand new to the mission, but he’s basically Elder Calhoun off of "The best two years". This kid talks to anything that moves. Like he will try and jump out of the car to go talk to people. So that was really fun for me to just talk to like a million people in one day! We met some sweet people and found a couple new investigators, too! We got to play basketball with this potential investigator's son named Khalil. So Ibe was a potential in our area book, and Elder Peterson and I met him once. Elder Salins and I stopped by and his son was out playing basketball. So we played H-O-R-S-E with him until his dad showed up! So as we were playing basketball with him we talked about the Book of Mormon with him and if he goes to church. Kahlil goes to church with his grandma a decent amount and really likes it. He said he would be interested in coming to our church as well. He’s in 6th grade and is super with it haha. We also talked to Ibe once he got home and invited them to basketball on Saturdays, and they were pretty stoked about that.  So that was sweet! Elder Salins was adamant that we didn’t have dinner so we could keep working. I was starving, but I was like, “Alright dude! Let’s do it!” We did a bunch of tracting and stop bys and then had a lesson with Paula, this lady that Elder Peterson and I found like 2 weeks ago. She invited us in and we taught her a full restoration lesson. She has some pretty unique beliefs! She thinks her mom is a prophet and that all people hold the Priesthood. She also said she believes in the Book of Mormon but she had never read it or heard of it. Then she started asking us about other books that came before the Bible. I was like, “Well, the Bible starts with Adam and Eve. I’m not sure how you can have anything before that.” She’s like, “No, they had books before Adam and Eve were on earth. You should read them.  I’ve never read them but you should research into them.” I was like “Ok......?” Super weird. But she said she’d read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. So that was good! After that we exchanged back and then went to Taco Bell on the way home because I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and was starving haha. 

     Friday we had Spanish District Meeting and then went to the VA and had a blast with all the homies there. There’re these two guys named Doug and Neil that I’m getting pretty tight with. So I hung out with them while we did a sing-a-long and played some board games. Haha we played “Apples to Apples” and Neil dominated, but he didn’t even know how to play. The whole game he’s like, “I don’t even know what the hell is going on? How am I winning?” I was like, “I don't know, Neil. Just keep doing what you're doing, man!” So he destroyed us, but didn’t quite grasp the concept of the game hahaha. We had a great time and the guys were happy to hang out with us! After that we had dinner with the Ramseys and the North Elders. They fed us some really good spaghetti, but it destroyed us after. All four of us were just camped out in the church bathroom for a while.  Not good. After dinner we had to do weekly planning because that was like the only time this week we could do it. So that was pretty much Friday!

     Saturday morning we met with Brother Patterson at McDonald’s to do our coordination meeting. These two old ladies were sitting next to us and they were 90 and 98 years old! They were so impressed with how nice we were dressed up that they stopped and talked to us and we ended up having a really cool conversation with them! We asked if they’d be interested in having the Elders in Minnetonka over to visit them, but they declined. They were so nice and really sweet. It was awesome! After that we helped Brother Patterson lift up his garage door because it was out of whack and didn’t work haha. Then we headed back to the church and dropped off the car for the North Elders and then did our studies and planning and then headed out on our bikes. It was a beautiful day out and tons of people were out! We talked to a lot of people and gave out like 3 Books of Mormon. Haha so many people are not interested in our message, but when you talk to everyone that’s out, you find those who are interested. We definitely saw that on Saturday!  After that we went to SA of miracles really quick to get a drink. It was a little warm out so we got some super sippers.  After that we had dinner with Brother Glover. He is pretty sweet! He used to be in gangs and some crazy stuff and then joined the church like 14 years ago. He got us fried chicken and fish again haha.  It was good but not healthy haha. I felt like a fatso after dinner haha. After that we headed out to Plymouth to play some basketball! DeAndre Singleton that I taught in Minnetonka was there and when I walked in he literally jumped on me and we just hugged for like 20 seconds. It was awesome!  He’s doing good! Basketball was way fun and we had a lot of people there.

     Sunday we basically had meetings the whole day. We had stake report meeting in the morning, then church, then met with Bishop, then we had to go back to Bloomington for the JustServe meeting with the stake then we drove back to dinner, then back down to Bloomington to Mission President's Fireside. So much driving haha. We literally had like 30 minutes to proselyte on Sunday. We just stopped by like 3 people and knocked a couple doors. It was kind of rough because it was a way nice day out and we were stuck inside in meetings all day. The meetings were good though, and we got some good headway on some stuff to help the work move forward. Mission President's Fireside was great! The Minnesota Mormon Chorale performed and they did such a great job. It was really amazing. Brother Archibald was there with the Buffalo Elders so I got to see him and I talked to Jeffrey from Minnetonka for like 20 minutes. He’s been struggling a lot, so I talked to him and offered some advice and my love! It was a good ending to the day.

     Well, it’s been a week! Time's clicking by. Can’t believe my friend, Max gets home this week and I have less than 2 months to go! It’s wild. Some ladies gave the North Elders a bunch of anti-Mormon material and told them they were going to hell. I read through it and it’s funny that they use a lot of church materials in their arguments. However, they’re used completely out of context and if you read like the whole chapter of the verses they use, it actually makes no sense in their argument. I’m grateful to have grown up in the church, with parents and grandparents who taught me the truth but didn’t force it on me. They allowed me to find answers for myself. And that is what I would advise you all to do as well. God wants you to know, He wants to speak to you, He wants you to be happy. Ask him in faith! Read the Book of Mormon, study stuff out for yourself! Don’t just take others' word for it, especially when they're way off. I’m grateful for the Holy Ghost who testifies to us of truth and helps us know in our mind in heart when things are true! I love my Father in Heaven and His perfect plan for us. I’m grateful for His son, Jesus Christ, and his role in God's plan for us. Without Christ, the plan would be for nothing. I know this is God’s work and this is His church! If you want to know for yourself, read the Book of Mormon and “Ask the missionaries! They can help you....” to know for yourself if it is true or not! (Quoting Russell M. Nelson) Love you all, hope you have a great week! 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Happy birthday to my companion this week!

My new CMU hats.

Snowed in...in April!

     What’s up to everyone back home, at school, and serving around the world in the warm weather of wherever you’re at. This week was pretty crazy and we had a blizzard Saturday and Sunday and it snowed over a foot and we had whiteout conditions, so we basically had a 3 day p-day because all we did was hang out in the apartment and shovel snow haha.  It was pretty crazy! We had a fun week, wasn’t the most productive as far as missionary work goes because we had a lot of stuff going on plus the blizzard.️ But it was fun nonetheless!

     So Monday we didn’t have p-day because we went to the Twins game on Wednesday this week! So we did a bunch of stuff to get ready for Zone Conference on Thursday. We had to get our training prepared, make travel plans, and go down to Bloomington to get van certified so we could drive the "vanimal" to Zone Conference. We had to watch a 2 hour training video and do this booklet thing and take a test. We got about an hour into it and we were like, “This is so dumb. Let’s just take the test.” So we took it and I missed one question that was a really stupid question and Elder Peterson got 100%, so we both got van certified.  The video was like what you watch in drivers ed basically. Like if you have no common sense or any idea how to drive you would watch that video. After that the Bearss took us, the North Elders, and the Spanish Elders to Burger Jones. It’s this super good burger place in Minneapolis. I just got a salad because the burgers are so bad for you haha. The favorite there is the “White Trash Burger” see pics below. After that we had to do all the zone conference stuff and I basically wanted to kill myself by like 6 pm. We spend like 4 hours trying to figure how we were getting everyone there because it was in Oakdale (no clue why). So we had to get 24 missionaries in the van and 1 car plus the APs car and President took like 5 people, too. So we somehow got it all worked out without absolutely thrashing miles in our zone.

     Tuesday was pretty sweet! We went to FMSC (Feed My Starving Children) in the morning/early afternoon and then did some stop bys in Hopkins on the way back. I had a chiropractor appointment at like 4:00, so we went to that and then picked up the other Elders for dinner. The Bundys got us a take and bake pizza. It was bbq chicken and was super good. So we just cooked it and ate it at the church. In the evening we knocked some doors for a little bit and then Brother Holder took us to the McIntoshes for a lesson. Brother McIntosh is a member and his wife is Lutheran. They’re both way cool and come to church about every other week and then go to her church the other weeks. We’ve talked to them at church a few times and have stopped by them to visit, but haven’t been able to set anything up. Brother Holder is good friends with Brother McIntosh because they are both photographers. So he got a lesson set up with them! We just got to know them and we really hit it off with them! We shared the restoration lesson and invited them to read the Book of Mormon to know if it is true and if the message we share is true. He asked us some questions about the sacred grove and said he’d been there a few times and really felt the spirit there. I’ve really enjoyed teaching the restoration on my mission. Each time we teach and bear testimony of it, the spirit is so strong. The spirit was killing it in the lesson we had with them, and I know she felt it, so I hope she acts on the feelings she had. I know he said he reads the Book of Mormon most days, so we are hoping to get them to read it together.

     Wednesday was the Twins game! It was dope. We rode the train from our apartment to the stadium and had a blast at the game. President Barney was getting so hyped haha.  It was awesome. There was a group of elementary school kids sitting in front of us so Elder Cross taught them a bunch of cheers to do so we would all be doing these super funny baseball cheers haha. The Twins hit a walk off home run in the bottom of the 8th inning to win it 9-8, so it was a great game. Definitely worth the $18 MSF to go haha.  After the game we had dinner really quick with Brother Showley and then had to drive down to Bloomington to get the vanimal for the Zone Conference the next day. 

     Thursday was Zone Conference and it was pretty good! We got to take the vanimal with like 10 other people in it to Oakdale, which is like 40 minutes from our place. Zone Conference was pretty good and Elder Peterson and I gave a training on doing devise checks on your companion.  We got some pretty awkward questions about what to do if you find bad stuff on your companion's iPad.  Elder Peterson just made it super funny and everyone was dying.  Even President had a good laugh haha. I don't know why people ask such awkward questions, but they do, so you just gotta roll with the punches. The conference ended up going over by like an hour and 15 minutes, so by the time we dropped everyone off and then took the van back, it was time to meet up with Brother Shaffer for dinner. He offered to buy us groceries this week, so I jumped all over that offer because for some reason fruits and veggies are like 3x as expensive as they were in the middle of the winter. I don’t quite understand that, but it costs me a lot of money to eat healthy haha.  I’m kind of stressing out about feeding myself when I get home because you can buy cheap, unhealthy stuff and get way more for less, but if you buy a ton of healthy stuff it’s so expensive. I don’t get it. And people wonder why America has an obesity problem.  We took this kid named Dominic with us. He’s a less active kid in our ward. He’s like 15 and has had a rough life. He grew up in 7 Mile, Detroit and did drugs and stuff when he was like 10. Then his mom moved to Arizona and they joined the church there. Somehow he ended up back here and is in our ward now. He’s a funny dude and Brother Shaffer helps him out a lot. So he came out with us. After we had dinner and shopped we were supposed to have a lesson with Eric, but he left a note on the door that said they had to go out and we could meet next week. We knocked like 3 doors by our apartment before we headed in and called it a night. 

     Friday we did service at the VA and made Modge Podge candle jars. They were pretty sweet and we got to talk to all the homies there about ‘Nam and killing people haha. They’re so funny! We also had a country music sing along, but it was all old school sappy country songs so I didn’t know any of them haha. After that we did weekly planning at the church and then had to bike home in this gnarly hail storm. It was pretty sucky and then it started snowing and getting super windy right before we got home. So Friday was good! I tuned up my bike by myself and it’s doing pretty good, so I don’t think I’ll need to pay for a tune up, especially since bike shops charge like $75+ for basic tune ups. It’s a joke haha.

     Saturday we were supposed to exchange with the APs, but that ended up not happening because we didn’t have a car and it was a blizzard and white out conditions. We had a lesson with the Iversons at 1 pm, so we cleaned our apartment until about noon (Sister Barney advised the mission to do this) and then took off on foot to get to our lesson. It was about a 2 mile walk on the way there. There were a lot of people out shoveling we stopped to help but no one wanted help and it was really hard to talk to people because the wind was blowing like 40 mph. So we go to the Iversons, and we were basically just a pile of snow walking into their house.  We talked about the enabling power of the atonement with them and how it not only “helps bad people become good, but good people become better!” It was a super good lesson and they really liked it! After that we trudged to the church and it was snowing so hard. We got there and basically stripped down to our shirts and slacks so everything could sort of dry off. The other Elders came and picked us up and we got some dinner and hung out at their place the rest of the night with them and the Spanish Elders. President said the cars couldn’t go out and it basically looked like hell frozen over outside and was snowing like crazy. 

     Church got cancelled Sunday morning, so we just chilled and shot some pool and watched general conference again. After it quit snowing super hard we headed out to shovel people out. We had a lesson with the Transfeldts at 3:30 pm and they made us some cinnamon cake and Milo which is like South African hot chocolate, but it’s way healthier haha. After that we had dinner with the North Elders, Spanish Elders, and Richfield Sisters at Hermana Morales’s house! It was pretty good. I’m not sure what we had, but it tasted good. We played Pie Face for Elder Peterson’s birthday haha.  That was pretty funny. After that we dropped off the other Elders at their place and went and shoveled Lisa Jones' sidewalk and front walk way. She came out and was tickled pink that we did that for her. She said her husband had been meaning to do it but just hadn’t yet because he was super tired from work. They had been planning on attending church, but it got canceled so that kinda sucked, but it is what it is! She said they were looking forward to meeting with us again on Thursday and we got to meet her husband, David, and he’s super nice! So I’m excited for Thursday this week! 

     Well, it’s been another good week here in the MMM. I read a talk recently by Elder Bednar called, “In the Strength of the Lord.” It was a super good talk about the enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. I posted it on my Facebook, so check it out if you want to read it! One thing it talked a lot about was not praying for God to change our circumstances, but praying for the strength to work through them and preserve them. I really loved that! Christ’s atonement is not to change a trial and make it easier for us, but to strengthen us and make us more able to endure our trial. It is such an underutilized aspect of the atonement that I learned about. I’m so hyped to learn about that and to continue to use the enabling power to help myself and others grow in “the strength of the Lord.” Love you all and have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Some of you think it's April.  However, it's really the 96th day of January...

So much fun at the Twins game!

President Barney was so excited for the Twins to win! :)

Burger Jones.

Get 'er done!

     Hello to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying life! Things are going pretty good here in Lake Nokomis. We’ve had a lot of administrative stuff to do this week with transfers and zone conferences and MLC, so it’s been kind of a hectic week, but we’ve seen a lot of cool miracles. (In Joker voice) “And...here.... we... go...“

     So Monday last week we went to the Mall of America with the zone and it was fun! The Sisters were a little hard to work with because they’re like, “Oh, let’s go to this store!” So we start walking there and then they have to stop and look at like 10 stores on the way. So we ended up just kind of ditching them and doing our own thing.  I just don’t have the patience to sit in Bath and Body Works for 30 minutes.  Call me crazy! I found some super sweet snap backs at Boot Barn but they were like $25-30 and I’m looking in the $10-15 price range haha, so I didn’t get them. Maybe another time. After P-day was over we literally did travel plans for like 2 hours. They yanked like 3 cars from our zone so it was a joke trying to get everyone to and from transfers. This next transfer is going to be even more ridiculous because we don’t have as many cars. We’ve already reserved the "vanimal" for transfers so we can haul people around in it haha.

     I literally can’t remember what happened on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure we just did stop by nation most of the day. Nothing majorly cool happened haha so yeah.... Oh - it snowed like 8 inches, so we did a lot of shoveling.️

     Wednesday we did a bunch more stop bys and some tracting. We found this lady named Renee, and she was Catholic but as we started talking more to her, she opened up a little and said we could come by Monday morning to share some more with her and her family! So that was pretty sweet! We were supposed to have a lesson with Virginia (a lady we found last Wednesday night at like 8:15 pm), but it fell through and we haven’t been able to get in contact with her since.  So that kind of was a bummer. That happens a lot. We find people that we think will be interested and then they flake out and we can’t ever get in contact with them again. Oh well! Just gotta keep working and pushing forward! Wednesday night we had a lesson with the Ludwigs. It was probably one of the most out there things I’ve ever been a part off. We invited them to read 2 Nephi 31, and then they texted us like half-way through the week and said they read it and wanted us to read Matthew 19 about the parable of the rich young ruler. So we did and literally couldn’t find any major similarities or comparisons we could think of. Like obviously they both talk about following the commandments and doing what Christ has asked us to do. So we get there and they are like, “So according to this story, the only way to receive eternal life is be perfect in keeping all the commandments or just accept Christ as your savior because we are all sinners.” They were getting really nit picky with the story of the rich young ruler about how there’s no way he could’ve kept all the commandments even though it literally says in the story that he had. We talked about taking things in the Bible literally because they seem to take half the things literally and the other half figuratively or just disregard it all together. This week they changed their doctrine of “faith is a product of baptism" to "only babies get faith from baptism while adults can have faith before they are baptized.” We asked them for scriptural evidence of this and they have yet to give us any.  They literally just interpret scriptures in their own way and think it’s doctrine. You can’t do that! That would be like me saying, “Oh this is what this scripture means and that’s the final say.” I have no authority to do that and probably wouldn’t have the greatest explanation of what it means. So basically it was pretty dumb.

     Thursday was transfer day, so we had to drive down to transfers so we could drive the North Elders home from transfers because they lost their car. It was fun to see Elders Meyer, Woolley, and some other buds from the mission. After that we did weekly planning and then had dinner with the Hehrs. They’re kind of less active but have a son on a mission in Colorado Springs right now. We had a great dinner with them and it was awesome.  I felt like we built a good relationship with their family so that was great, and then they came to church on Sunday so that was also sweet. After that we were supposed to have a lesson with Lisa Jones, who is a less active who’s husband is a Lutheran. So we had gotten an appointment set up with her last week, and we had a lesson with her this week. We just got to know her a little bit and taught her the restoration lesson and invited her to read the Book of Mormon. Her husband was asleep when we went over, so he wasn’t part of the lesson unfortunately. After the lesson we knocked a few doors and found this lady named Queesha and taught her and her family and set up a lesson with them on Monday night! So that was a sweet miracle. 

     Friday we had MLC (Mission Leader Coordination) and it was fun to see everyone! Our whole MTC District is Zone Leading right now ,so that’s pretty sweet! Elders Peterson, Cross, Hickman and I had matching floral ties for MLC, so we were the swaggiest zone there by far.  After MLC we had dinner with Brother Ramsey and his family, and it was a hoot. Elder Hickman's face on one of our pics looks super funny and people on the mission page were “cyber bullying” him.  So we showed Brother Ramsey the picture and he was like, “Yeah... you kinda brought that on yourself.” It was so funny! After dinner we did some tracting and stop bys and called it a day!

     Saturday we had a lesson with the Iversons and that went super well! Sister Iverson told us a lot about her earlier life and she’s been through some tough stuff! I feel like my life is busy and difficult sometimes, but man I sure don’t anymore haha.  She’s one tough cookie. We talked about general conference and everyone’s impressions of it! They both enjoyed it and got some great insights from it. After that we did a bunch of stop bys and 2x2 where you knock two doors at each stop by. We’ve really enjoyed that method of finding and it’s been working out pretty well for us! So that’s been sweet and is a good way to break up tracting and stop bys because doing each of those for hours on end is not fun.  It was pretty good, and we got in contact with a part member family we hadn’t met yet and had a good connection with them, so that was great! We also met some sweet people tracting. The Gadds bought us Subway for dinner and it was super good! Haha I love the Gadds. They’re awesome! After that we went to Minnetonka to play some basketball. Brother Hansen was there and I got to talk to him and he invited me and Mom and Dad to have dinner with them when we visit! So that was sick. We had like 20 people at basketball so it was crazy haha.

     Sunday was awesome! We had 2 people at church and lots of less actives! Lisa Jones texted us right before church and said that she wasn’t able to attend, but her husband listened in to our lesson on Thursday and loved what he heard and wants to come to church next week! They also are reading the Book of Mormon together, so we were hyped. After church we had a lesson with Brother Christensen and just talked to him about some struggles he’s been having. He’s been super stressed out with work so we just talked about some stuff he can do to help him out and also invited him to read or watch the General Conference talks and receive his own revelation about how he can be closer to God and do the little things right (church, pray, read) so it was really good! He’s a way cool guy.  After that we did a bunch of stop bys and then had dinner with Bishop Chrysler and his family. We ended up being there like 2 hours because we kind of had our coordination meeting with him at the same time as dinner. Haha at dinner they made home made corn dogs and chicken noodle soup for me. So, Elder Peterson ate 8 corn dogs and I was like, “You won’t eat 10...” So he ate 10, then Elder Hickman was like, “I can't let him eat more than me!” So Elder Hickman ate 10, then they both ate 11. Then I was like, “You can’t just end on a tie.” So they both had a biscuit with jam for the tie break and both ate it.  Then Elder Peterson put down another corn dog and Elder Hickman tapped out. It was so funny and everyone was like cheering them on and having a grand old time with it haha. After that we had to do some numbers and get Zone conference travel plans ready to go and a bunch of administrative stuff.  I’m not a fan of it, but it needs to get done for everything to run smoothly. So that was our day.  Monday and Tuesday we had some sweet miracles, but I’ll write about those in next weeks email.

     This week's been great! I’m excited to be here another transfer. I’m grateful to be in this Zone. I really love the missionaries here. They work really hard and I appreciate that a lot! I know this is God’s true church on the earth. I know that Jesus Christ lives and He is our Savior and Redeemer. I’ve never seen him, felt the nail prints in his hands and feet, or listened to Him teach. But I know He lives. I know he loves us and I know he is the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I’m so grateful for our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. I know he is called of God and is truly the prophet on earth today. I know the Book of Mormon is true and each time I read it the spirit reaffirms that truth to me in the pages and messages of Christ and how we can draw closer to Him!  Thanks for all your prayers and support on my behalf. I’m in the last leg of my sprint to the end of my mission. I’m going to give it all I've got and leave it all on the field. I greatly appreciate your prayers and love that strengthen and support me when I sometimes feel I have nothing left in the tank. Love you all! Have a bomb week.

Much love, 

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Our former MTC District are now all Zone Leaders!

It was fun to see Elder Woolley again!

It was also fun to catch up with Elder Meyer!

Visiting at the VA hospital.

Visiting with Brother Hansen and his kids at basketball.

Elder and Sister Bearss took us to Jones Burger.  I had a salad...

Matching ties for MLC.

We had to do a "fake laugh" pose because that's what the Sisters always do.

Sunday "sauna night".

It's still winter in Minnesota!

Transfers!

     What’s up to everyone back home, at college and serving around the world! Hope you all had a great Easter/conference weekend. I loved General Conference so much this year. It was awesome to be part of the Solemn Assembly and to sustain President Nelson as the Lord's prophet on earth today. This week has been sweet! I’m just gonna share some cool highlights from the week that we’ve had, so this email may not be quite as long! Elder Peterson and I are both staying in Lake Nokomis another transfer, so hopefully we can go one more after this and finish it out together.

     So I’m gonna start off with my conference weekend highlights first this week and kind of work backwards in the week! On Saturday we were supposed to have a big potluck in between sessions of conference at the church, but literally no one showed up except the missionaries and like 3 members. So we were like, "What the heck?" The potluck was our meal on the missionary calendar, so we were a little confused. However, Brother Glover came in clutch and ordered like 3 huge things of fried chicken for everyone, so that was sweet haha. See pics below. Then the Sisters bought us all Wendy’s haha, so we ended getting a lot of food. I gave away like half my Wendy’s haha. So anyway, it was good! The things I got out of Conference I will include in picture quotes below. President Nelson is God's prophet. I know that without a doubt. I also had the spirit witness to me that Elders Gong and Soares are apostles as well. It was awesome! President Nelson’s quote: “In coming days it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.” That really stuck out to me. He knows that there are things ahead that will challenge our faith and our ability to follow Christ and keep His commandments. He told us what we need to do to be able to combat the powers of evil in days ahead. I’m grateful for his ability to be the “Watchman on the Tower.” 

     Sunday night after conference we had a sweet tracting experience! We stopped by a potential and then knocked a few doors around her house because she wasn’t home. These 3 guys were all outside of her duplex having a drink and smoke and we started talking to them. One of the guys there, T, told us to knock on his neighbor's door. So we did! This older lady came to the door and we said, “Hey we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! Could we share a message about Christ with your family on this beautiful Easter Sunday?” She looked at us for a second and then said, “Sure! Come on in!” So we went into her home and taught about 15 people the restoration. They all were just sitting on couches and chairs in a semi circle and we just got to stand in front of them all and teach and testify that God had a prophet on the earth today and that the Book of Mormon was true and testified of Christ. It was seriously one of the coolest experiences I’ve had on my mission. We gave like 4 Books of Mormon away to different family members. Most of them lived outside of our area, but several of them had some questions and we were able to answer them and they were very thankful we stopped by. If nothing else, we brought the spirit into their home so they could feel of God's love for them on Easter! It was so awesome. It just made me so happy and I was on cloud 9 the rest of the day. The family was African American, and some of the guys looked like they were involved in gangs or just kind of hood rats. 4 or 5 of them just thanked us for teaching them and were so kind and grateful. It was so awesome. It’s hard to put into words how I felt, but it was sweet. Haha the first dude we talked to, T, gave us a dollar bill for “Preaching the good word.” Haha he took a Book of Mormon, too. So the weekend was awesome!

     A big lesson I have learned in my life through football is if you work hard till the end, good things always happen. So Tuesday was basically one of those days as a missionary that suck and you just have to grind it out but then you see a ton of cool miracles at like 8 pm. Literally everyone was either gone or cancelled appointments on Tuesday. It was rough. So anyway, like 8 pm rolls around, and we literally have nothing to do, so we were just like “Let’s knock some doors. Why the heck not?” So we knocked this street and talked to some sweet people. We knocked into this one guy who was like, “Yeah, I’m not gonna convert or anything, but I’ll listen to your message.” So we talked about his religious background and then I was like, “Could we come in and share a 10 minute message with you?” He’s like, “No, probably not.” I was like, “You literally just said you’d listen to our message....” He’s like, “Ok.... come in.” So we just taught him about the Book of Mormon and testified that God has called a prophet on the earth today, Russell M Nelson. When we told him that President Nelson is a world renowned heart surgeon, he really started to listen because he was all about science and not faith haha. After we told him that and shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon, he was like, “Yeah, I’ll check out the Book of Mormon for sure!” So hopefully he does.  We had a few more people similar to that on the street after him. So it ended up being a great send off to Tuesday evening. At the end of the day I was like, “We basically got boned the whole day, so God threw us a couple of bones at the end of the day because we worked hard all day haha.” 

     Wednesday we had a similar situation happen as to what happened on Tuesday. We had a lot of appointments fall through in the afternoon and evening. We ended up knocking some doors again and found this lady named Virginia. When she opened the door she was super nice and wasn’t super interested at first. She said she grew up Lutheran and then fell away from organized religion. She liked learning about all religions and we were able to teach her basically a full restoration lesson. I am 100 percent sure she felt the spirit as we taught and testified. At the end she invited us to come back this Wednesday afternoon to teach her and her family! She didn’t take a Book of Mormon unfortunately, but we will make sure she takes one this week.  Once again, a cool miracle that came only after working until the end of the day! 

     Thursday we did accounting and weekly planning and then I had my doctor appointment with the endocrinologist downtown. So the North Elders dropped us off at that and then after we walked over to pay our parking ticket we got when we got towed. We go in and the lady's like, “I see you paid the towing cost, so I’m just gonna waive the parking ticket.” Haha we were pretty stoked about that! Another cool miracle! Thursday night we were able to go out with Brother Shaffer and visit this less active lady named Sister Collins. It was one of the stranger visits I’ve had. Her son is in the ward and is active, but she hasn’t seemed to have done anything with the church for about 5 years. Hasn’t watched conference, been to church, read the Book of Mormon, etc. She was pretty shady as to why, so we still aren’t really sure. We shared our testimonies of living prophets and the Book of Mormon and invited her to read the Book of Mormon and watch conference. I’m hoping she did because Conference was awesome! 

     Friday we got to do service at the VA again! I love those old guys that are there. They are so funny and such loving people. They LOVE the Sisters. It is hilarious how much they flirt with them.  I just sit and watch and laugh at them haha. We got to paint some flowers and make wreaths with them.  They loved it and it was fun to talk to them and get to know them better. I love visiting the elderly! They have such great hearts and so much wisdom for us! We just did a bunch of stop bys and tracting after dinner on Friday. Good lesson I learned from my ZL responsibilities: so the Plymouth Elders are both kind of new to the mission life. We’ve stressed a lot the importance of setting realistic goals and making sure your finding and sacrament and baptismal goals are lined up. We’ve given several trainings, conference calls, etc. on this and how to do it and set goals properly. They sent in their goals and they were super high for an area that has had little to no success the past year. I was a little frustrated at first, so we decided to have a video chat with them that night to talk to them and just understand their train of thought and then how we could help them. As we talked to them, I realized they were doing the best they knew how with the knowledge they had. They had names behind all their dates set and baptism numbers. I was happy to see that and I realized they just didn’t know what they were doing all the way. So we were able to walk them through how to set reasonable goals and help them understand how their finding and teaching would coordinate with their sacrament attendance and baptisms. By the end, they really got it and we were all on the same page! So I learned that instead of getting frustrated with people, I need to talk to them, understand what their thought process is with stuff, then help them understand how to do it and then let them redo it the right way! Then instead of me just being frustrated with people, I can teach them and help them get better. So that was a great lesson learned for me!

     Well it’s been a solid week!  I’m excited to stay here in Lake Nokomis with Skinny Pete. It’s been a party so far, and I’m looking forward to another good 6 weeks of hard work! Hard to believe I only have 2 transfers left.  Gotta make em count! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Thanks for all the prayers and support. Keep working hard in whatever you’re doing. God helps us when we put in the work and do our part. Thanks for the prayers, keep them coming my way! I need them every day. Some days are a grind and I’m so dead tired I just wanna sleep all day.  Those prayers get me through those days and help me give it my all! Love you all once again, prayers up from Minnesota!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

"Skinny Pete" and I are staying together!  Brother Glover saved the day with chicken wings!