Received Monday, August 18, 2014

I've realized more and more that if someone sincerely reads the book of mormon every day, then they will notice a change somehow, that goes for members and nonmembers. 

very glad about g-man's teeth being a lot better, i bet he loves that. also glad he has an excellent fashion sense like mine, he has the eye for it you and beebee wouldnt understand.

Something fun and different we did for preparation day today! this morning we went out biking with a returning less active member and his home teacher. theyre both really cool, it was a lot of fun. In all we went about 40 kilometers (guessing around 25 miles). I'm not too sore and tired, but elder wilson is. Also i had a great opportunity to use a good patois proverb I know in every day speaking. Brother Cain and brother crisostomo each took out their bikes and theirs are really nice (each was probably about 10 pounds) and ours obviously are not so great (elder wilson's is a children's bike I think and my gear changer is bent so it jumps gears all the time). When they took out their bikes they talked a little about each others bikes, how nice they were, and i got to say quiety "Cockroach no ha place inna fowl fight". very proud moment, i've decided to start collecting those patois sayings (they are on the bottle caps of the island sodas) and once I get a bunch I can send them home.

also that reminds me, I hope you havnt sent anything yet because transfers are next week, you should send whatever you have to the mission office just in case I get transferred. Also, if youre not using it, that garmin gps might be nice to have.

and also I've gotten letters with nice notes and the ward programs in them from both the Sotis' and the Hagan's as well as i got some drawings and a picture of the primary (i'm pretty sure that day griffin was gone, i thought it was funny) so those were very nice, i appreciate it.

Have you got your ketchup clothes/tie cleaned yet?

I forgot about it, whoops, it will be done soon though! I got Christopher's note, i'll try to get it in asap

should I send you another memory card for your camera??

that would be very nice if you could actually, thanks!

I am feeding the sister missionaries on Monday night, is there some food that you wish to have that I should make for them?? I am thinking of Beef Burgundy.

Belut, chicken feet, maybe some cow brains. actually we had a great meal this week (none of those). We had some Guyanese curry with roti bread (i'll let you look up what that is) it is very good, it was actually brother cain's wife who made it. also within the meet and stuff in the curry (color: green) there were bones still left in there intentionally so you could suck the marrow out. the marrow is very good. so i guess you could make that for the sisters!

HOW did you meet Keeshon and Ashlee in the Walmart parking lot?? Did you just see them and stop and talk?? That is amazing. Had they heard of the church before?

we were walking back with the groceries, he asked for a jump on his car. he asked us why we were so dressed up, we said we were missionaries and he loved it and loved how we wore Jesus' name over our hearts, really cool. some sad news with them though. we taught them the full restoration, they loved the whole thing up until we told them about the book of mormon. then he started just kind of staring, thinking really hard. like you could see the spirit working in him. he loves the bible and reads it all the time but he was a little skeptical about the book of mormon. In all it really was a good lesson, we knew he would have a hard time with it but he would just have to read it. in the end he told us he would pray about it, if the answer was yes he would keep it, if the answer was no the book had to go. we said that was fine and we set up an appointment for saturday. since then he hasnt responded to any texts or calls :( we are going to just have to try really hard to get in there, we are guessing he didnt wait to listen to a response from God and looked up some anti. I think when we see him next we will basically tell him to read 3 Nephi 17 and basically dare him to tell us that thats not Jesus there.

In better news this week we were biking up our own street, there was this 20s ish guy longboarding up ahead of us who we had seen many times but wasnt interested. he kept looking back at me over and over, so i biked up next to him and asked what he was looking for. he asked "how do you know?" I stopped and talked to him for a little but he had to go somewhere so we got his address. basically he is really having a hard time with any belief in God right now and is just really confused. hes a really cool guy. we're stopping by tomorrow.

do you meet with your mission pres during the time of every transfer?

no but we saw him last night for a special fireside! it was actually a special stake fireside set up by the stake presidency mainly for the recent converts but everyone was invited. it was really awesome, in the beginning they asked all the recent converts to come up and give their quick stories and their testimonies. after that Sister Clayton came up and talked about what "home" is and to start off she said that she had written down what each of those converts had described "home" as and she told us them, it was really cool. it was things like "things just got better" and "Someone was there with me" it was really cool.

Did your High Councilor speak in church this week? We did, it was good.

I dont believe so, but it was cool. the youth just got back from YLC (youth leadership camp- 14 and up) so to start the bishop asked 3 of the youth to come up and bare their testimonies which was cool. then a couple adults who were councilors there came and spoke, it was basically about developing Christlike attributes, it was good.

How often do you play basketball for pday?

not really ever, maybe like 5 minutes at a time. today we are doing something a little different (on top of the biking) we are meeting at a field and playing ultimate frisbee and soccer and stuff.

Do you feel like you are getting to know all the ward members?

yea I feel like I know them pretty well, I know most people i'd say.

Do you spend much time with the youth?

I try to, I really like the youth and I think theyre super important. we teach with them a lot because it's summer. in our young men's there are only a couple super solid going on mission YM, so we are trying to work with them to help them be close together and include some people we are trying to bring in as investigators.

do you go to gospel doctrine class, or gospel principles?

gospel essentials, I think thats the same as gospel principals though.

whenever you get transferred, will you leave the bike there, or take it with you?

leave it, there arent any "biking" areas in our mission just car and bus, the mission provides 0 bikes, they basically just come from the ward if bikes are there, so it is nice to have bikes.

Also some cool/interesting info I got this week. We will definitely be getting ipads and facebook before the year is over!

Alright thats all

I love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, August 11, 2014

Happy Birthday Dad!! I hope you get the fantasy football pick you wanted!

all good stories about Utah and Idaho and heather and Steven. Good missionary work mom!

so a good story happened to me on sunday, I took a video of me explaining it. i will send it to you with this email, then at the bottom of the email I will give some information that I didn't explain that you would probably want to know. but basically, I will need to go to the dry cleaners soon.

QUESTION ABOUT ITUNES:

background: trying to charge my ipod with my new computer, a dialog box comes up and says it does not know the name of the ipod. If the problem persists, uninstall itunes, then reinstall itunes. Question: IF we do that, will all the itunes info (songs) come back on?? Do you have advice?

So every once and a while, itunes automatically backs up (or saves) the entire library, you can find that in the itunes file on the computer somewhere. I'm not entirely sure whether uninstalling it completely would remove that file or not, i would guess not, but to be safe you should save the most recent library backup file to a different location. once you reinstall it, you can just add the "itunes library backup" file like you would any song.

QUESTIONS:

FROM LAST WEEK'S LETTER: Have any spontaneous conversations with people out on the street?

yes, that is something I need to get way better at, but I'm still improving as I do it. nothing too interesting or storymaking come of it this week though. 

The question is, what do you need to get better at, the quantity of spontaneous conversations, or the quality of them? Just curious.

both, more the quality though.

Are you getting close to transfers again? Do you think either you or your companion will change?

we find out about transfers on the night of the 24th. It is probably likely that at least 1 of us will change, elder Wilson has been here 3 transfers which is already the longest he has ever stayed anywhere also.

Have you been wearing your short sleeve shirts mostly lately?

almost every day. I'm trying to enjoy the freedom and ability to where short sleeve shirts for as long as possible before the great white north unveils its true power in spectacular fashion. when I do where long sleeve shirts I always roll up the sleeves.

Apparently at some point with one of my short sleeve shirts I put the pen in my shirt pocket with the pen out, there is now a prominent ink stain at the bottom of the pocket. I have tried to bleach it and everything but it's not going away, I am still deciding whether it is appropriate to still wear every once and a while or not.

How do you know how to find addresses where you are going? Zak used his garmin GPS, are you using your companion? How does all that work for you?

sometimes we use a gps elder Wilson has, but most of the time now when we're in Pickering I know where we're going most of the time, I just look at the map really quick before hand.

How are you sleeping? Are you getting to sleep any faster, or the same?

I fall asleep pretty quickly normally, its pretty nice. a lot faster than I do at home.

Does your companion snore?

nope, or at least I haven't heard it. but someone at church yesterday does.

apparently an older guy in elders quorum this Sunday fell asleep and it was very loud. no one said anything but i'm pretty sure most people heard it, it was very funny.

What food has he made for you lately?

basically the only foods we ever have are, pasta (with red sauce), burgers, tacos, and pancakes. luckily I have trained myself all my life for something like that by eating the exact same thing each morning for breakfast (cereal) and lunch (sandwich, granola bar, drink of some kind, fruit of some kind) through about 12 years of schooling.

What did you eat for breakfast?

Cereal. always. this time it was the bag, cheap, kind of frosted mini wheats.

Do you get hungry between meals?

sometimes yea but nothing too bad, its nice to be fed a meal by a member and be able to eat a lot there.

Do you carry snacks in your missionary bag?

nope, apparently I'm too cheap to buy myself snacks. any time I pick up a snack item i feel like those things almost always make me feel more hungry, so I can never make myself buy them. I do buy some chocolate things every once and a while though. I'm going to buy an Aero bar at some point this week. that's another Canadian candy bar that everyone says is super good.

how many key indicators do you report on every week? 10, 15, 20?

12, we do all the ones in the planner plus 1 called RPL (referral present lessons). that one is basically for when you are teaching someone and ask if someone else is in the house to listen and someone is there. people don't normally get too many of those. apparent the new mission president, president Clayton, is thinking about changing that one out with some sort of temple related key indicator which is cool.

Have you ever taken some clothes to the dry cleaners yet?

nope but I should soon, I have a good story.

What will you do/play for p-day today?

same stuff, Oshawa, volleyball, dodgeball, soccer.

How often, or what makes you get your car cleaned?

that has not really happened yet... so nothing.

How are your investigators doing?

Good. So that one guy we met in the Walmart parking lot, keeshon, we met with this week. We met with him and his fiance Ashele, they both have very strong testimonies on prayer and Jesus Christ. We asked them to be baptized on the 24th of August they said yea sure, we're actually getting married the day before. Apparently they are only staying in Niagara (where they are getting married) for a day then coming back here, so they are happy to be baptized. there is still plenty that they need to be taught but they are super awesome and very prepared.

also another cool quick story. we had lots of people to visit that were not home one night. then we decided to go stop by another former investigator-ish guy who is willing to listen but he is drunk all day every day basically no matter what time we come. but when we went by this time (we hadn't come by in like 3 weeks) he has apparently quit alcohol completely! really cool. he still says that he's not going to change anything so not perfect, but we will try to visit a few more times and see how things go from there.

Did any of the above come to church yesterday?

yes, sort of. we texted keeshon and asked him Saturday morning if he was coming to church. he responded Sunday right when the first speaker started speaking, asking when it started (yes we have told him a couple times) I told him it just started and to come on over. When he didn't respond I assumed he wasn't coming. then right during the closing song him and ashele walked in and sat down next to us! we gave them a quick tour of the building after sacrament meeting, then they had to go move some stuff in to their new apartment, so they could stay the whole time. but still cool they came.

Wow I guess, it doesn't let me send videos or something! it apparently exceeds the size limit for attachments and I cant think of any other way to get around that.

basically we were biking down the sidewalk, it was a really wide sidewalk so I was next to elder wilson. all of a sudden I heard a big pop then I was suddenly covered in ketchup. I think we have a few pictures maybe, I'll send those if I can. I feel bad the video didn't work. I'll see If i can find an sd card the same as my camera's so I can just take a bunch of pictures and send that to you.

To be read after the video:

so that lady I was talking about in the beginning is our upstairs "neighbor" we live in a basement apartment so that door next to me is to her part of the house (yes it's locked) and she was right there, so it was weird so I went down to our basement level.

Elder Wilson accidentally ran over a ketchup packet that was sitting on the sidewalk and it sprayed all over me. it was so bad that we had to ride back to the apartment to change. I had actually taken a handkerchief and wiped some of it off also so it didn't look quite as bad as it was at that point. the only dry clean only thing i was wearing at that point was my tie so that is good news too.

OK I guess that's all,

I love you!

Quinn

Here are the pictures Quinn sent with this letter.

SORRY about the "sideways". I forgot all my picture abilities for blogging. Just turn your head a bit - it could be good exercise.

 You should also know that Quinn was ready to pack this tie when he was first preparing to go on his mission. I saw it and gasped! it was stained, dirty and I think oil was involved. I told Quinn he could not take that tie with him, that I would have to see if magic could be done at the dry cleaner (I doubted). When I came back home from dropping Quinn off at the MTC, I went to pick up his tie at the dry cleaners. It was shocking to me how beautiful it came out! Totally clean, no problems. it looked like new.

Apparently, this tie is a magnet to mess. Let's hope the magic can happen again.

 This is so "Quinn" with the rolled up sleeves.

I love seeing his mission badge.

Received Monday, August 4 , 2014

Great email! good and informative and interesting. very surprising that no girls cried or anything though, where did the drama go?

too bad about christopher possibly getting surgery, but at least he found a way to help himself.

about kylie: I realized recently that I brag about my super talented at everything sister a lot. thats super cool youre doing a song you wrote! thats awesome beebee! I feel kinda bad we didnt hang out as much as we should have before I left, thats ok we can in a couple years.

along those lines also, 1 interesting trend i've noticed in some missionaries. some of them try to forget about and avoid thinking of anything from back home or stuff before their missions, so that they can become totally consecrated to their missionary work. this is a practice I am very much against. I love the memories of my family and friends from before my mission and will by no means forsake them for any amount of time. It is those times with them that led me here, and my family and friends were directly blessings from God to lead me to the path I need to be on. Basically thinking of you is a powerful motivation, not a distraction as some think. I love you, thanks for being great!

anyway on to questions:

Was Monday a different day because of the holiday? Did you have appts?

not entirely sure what this question is asking, but I will try to interpret. yes p-day was tuesday because of the holiday. other than that, monday was mostly like pretty much any other day. we didnt have any true investigator appointments that day sadly, but we had a couple potentials we dropped by who we had knocked on a day before and told us to come back monday. so that was nice to be able to go to them. 

What are you doing for pday today?

Elder Wilson is getting a hair cut, I will not because I stubbornly dont feel like I need a hair cut yet. after that probably oshawa.

Been exercising lately?

not so much, lots of stretching in the morning, basically trying to wake myself up the first half hour to finish getting ready the next half hour.

Have you given out any Book of Mormon’s this week?

last week we gave out a couple I think, we actually ran out of book of mormons to hand out so we took a couple from the ward library, then we're getting more tomorrow morning at zone training.

we did have a bunch of member present lessons here this week though which is good. we actually took a couple youth out with us a couple days for several hours, they dont normally tend to help too much in lessons, but it helps to give good missionary experience for them.

How is riding your bike? Any adventures there? How often do you ride, like how many days a week?

bike riding is good, i like it actually. elder wilson not so much, he has bad knees from playing football so it hurts him. nope not really any interesting stories from that surprisingly. we try and ride most days of the week, like 5.

FROM GRIFFIN: have you had any maple syrup yet?

apparently there is something that is like real canadian maple syrup, which I have not had yet. its really expensive, I'll have to get some soon though. people like to make fun of me for my exceedingly high syrup to pancake ratio when I eat them so maybe that would satisfy my syrup needs better without using so much syrup.

Any good adventures with food?

nothing new from this week about food really, still havnt had belute. but there is a ward picnic on august 23rd in which the ward council chose to put us in charge of deciding what eating contest we would do during the picnic. I think we might do something along the lines of filipino fear factor (belute, chicken feet, squid, etc.). that should be pretty cool.

Any interesting appointments this week?

yes! that one guy we met last p-day we met up with! his name is keeshon, like right before the appointment he texted us and told us he had to do something and now had to meet us at the mall food court. when we went there we saw him with 4 other friends. we were worried they maybe just wanted to have a big bible bash thing with us but it turned out they are all legitimately interested! very exciting. we are meeting with keeshon tomorrow.

Have any spontaneous conversations with people out on the street?

yes, that is something I need to get way better at, but I'm still improving as I do it. nothing too interesting or storymaking come of it this week though.

Do you notice the specific Canadian speech still? Do you have to watch yourself from making fun of it?

I dont notice it quite as much but still a little. the eh's are blending in more. I still make fun of it to some youth or something sometimes.

so we pronounce pasta like POSTA right? well they pronounce it like PAHSTA, I think its very funny, sorry I'm not gonna be saying it like that.

Have you noticed heavy Ketchup use?

no but they eat french fries funny. I think it stems from the putine eating thing. they like to just get a pile of fries, put ketchup all over it, then they eat them with a fork. its pretty great.

How did you hear about the change in date of your p-day?

the zone leaders texted us like saturday about it.

ADVICE on your contacts!!!

Only 1 box, I still have like 1 and 3/4 of a big box left, so 1 more should be plenty! thanks mom!

Alright there ya have it!

I love you!

Quinn

P.S.  oh and I forgot to say 1 cool thing I noticed in the Book of Mormon this week! In a vision, Nephi talks to the Holy Ghost face to face and He was in the form of a man! its 1st Nephi 11:11 I think. super cool I never knew anyone has seen Him as a man before its really cool. It helps to show that He is a real person, and when He is with you, you literally have a Member of the Godhead with you at all times when you are worthy.

P.P.S. woah I just found out that apparently there is a Canada Toronto Mission facebook page if that interests anyone

Received Monday, July 28, 2014

First off, happy birthday G-Man! I hope you get all the random new things you want!

Also something cool just happened right before we came here to email. we were just walking out of walmart with our groceries when a guy ran up to us and asked us to help jump his car. we went and pulled up next to his car and he asked me why we were all dressed up, i started out by saying we were missionaries, then he got super excited and was like "oh man I love jesus I wanna be a missionary!" he apparently has wanted to be a missionary (not necessarily a mormon one but thats still cool) and so he grabbed our number and he told us he'd call us, shouldve got his number, didnt, but still pretty exciting and cool.

now to your questions:

What are you doing for P-day today?

probably to oshawa as usual, its always fun. its raining today so we will be inside the stake center there playing volleyball/dodgeball/soccer.

that reminded me of something funny that happened yesterday. We got caught in a pouring rain thunderstorm as we were biking home at like 8:30. it was pretty fun actually, although my shoes are soaking wet. luckily I have 2 pairs of shoes, so I'm wearing my other ones for a while until the others dry.

How was church yesterday?

good. 1 funny thing about this ward is that they are not the best singers (like they dont sing very loud at all) but for at least 1 song every sunday they always pick 1 random hymn that no one knows to sing. I love it every time just because its really funny to hear everyone totally confused as to how to do the song. this week we sang hymn #11 "What was witnessed in the heavens?" but sacrament meeting was good. the first talk was a newer youth (12 years old, only deacon) who recently moved from guatemala but doesnt speak english super well. he was pretty nervous but it was pretty good. he talked about pioneers and how his great-grandmother was a pioneer because she was the 9th person ever baptized in guatemala! then another speaker is a recently married guy who just moved in, he talked about Uchdorf's talk "dont sleep through the restoration." Then sister ---- came up,  she was very confident up there. she was good and pretty entertaining, at one point she talked about the pain people have to go through or something like that then she said "but not the other kind of pain, How are you doing Sister Payne?" as she waved to a woman in the peus. overall it was good. oh and 2 investigators unexpectedly showed up! always super cool.

Do you go to Ward Council meeting?

yup every week, we dont normally add too much, the ward mission leader usually says all that needs to be said, but I still like going, its nice to know whats going on in the ward and they mention less actives to help and how they will help, so we get good helpful information.

Is your weather still nice and warm? I have not checked at all this week!!

its been mostly pretty warm except for yesterday, I never really know exactly what the temperature is because everything is in celcius here. 

In the car, do you listen to music or talks on CD? What music or/and what talks?

music on CD, Elder wilson has a bunch of music he's got, a lot of EFY type music and stuff like that.

Question from Griffin: have you had poutine yet?

not yet! you can order it at McDonalds here but everyone says that if youre going to get poutine, you have to go where it is good actually, otherwise it kind of stinks. so I will eventually.

Are you going to the grocery store today? What are you buying?

already went, usual stuff, cereal, burgers, bread, oatmeal. basically the same stuff a random college student would get.

What sports are big there in Canada….besides hockey?

more hockey, thats basically the big thing here, no other sports really rise up too much over any others here.

Have you done a zone conference with your new mission president yet?

nope, just that one meet the president day, we dont have any zone conference this transfer.

From Zak: at your dinner appts, what spiritual things do you do/talk about? Like, do you bring up missionary work?

not so much until afterwards we always have a spiritual thought, which we tend to leave it more as a missionary type thing.

Have you memorized D & C 4 already? How long did it take you? As a youth, I sang a song where those were all the words. I liked it. Some of the words still come to me.

nope, I havnt really tried to either. there has been no emphasis on memorizing it at all. and to be honest I dont necessarily see too much advantage in memorizing that instead of other scriptures that can be used in teaching lessons, so I havnt put any emphasis on it for myself either. It is great scripture and good to read over to make sure you are acting in the ways in which you should (faith, hope, love, charity, etc.) but not much advantage in memorizing it. oh here is a good question that maybe you could answer about it though. Why does it say you should have love and charity? if charity is the pure love of christ, isnt saying love redundant? there is something good to ponder.

Do the sisters and elders ever do things together on P-day?

whatever sisters and elder that go to oshawa, thats basically the only thing i've done on p-day so I have no experience whatsoever as to what to do if you dont all meet as a zone (or whoever wants to show up from the zone).

ok thats about it for today

I love you! and congratulations to Ashley and Daniel!

Quinn

P.S.  Just had some Poutine G-Man! it was really good. we got it at this place known for poutine called smokes. they put a bunch of other meat and bacon and stuff on there on top of the cheese and gravy as well so it was really good. only problem is it made me feel sick after eating about half of it because it was so unhealthy. I'll probably finish it off for dinner or something

Received Monday, July 21, 2014

Good Missionary work Mom! and helping out the sisters!

i've discovered that It seems like there is a very slight discrimination against sister missionaries from a lot of members, its kind of weird. Since we have started being able to get meals from ajax members, from just about every single one there has been someone saying a joke or something about being able to feed the real missionaries, or being glad to be able to feed the elders again or something, or about how the sisters never eat much and we eat a lot. It is kind of sad, so always remember to be nice to sisters, Good Job Mom!

can you go to lds.org while on your p-day?

yes, i never really do though. elder wilson does sometimes when he finishes emailing before me or between emails (i think he does that email back and forth thing with his family that the hansens would do)

have you heard about the indexing goal for today?

nope

Zak also told me that as a missionary you just order the supplies you need once a month from the mission office; like pamplets; pass along cards, book of mormons. Have you ordered anything yet?? What have you ordered?

yes you can, we've had to order some new restoration pamphlets, and I got a consecrated oil vial cause I never got one for myself before then.

Do you give out many pass a long cards? Like how many a week?

yup, we give out a bunch to the people that arent interested pretty much. In this area we'll give out like 20-30 a week probably

How many Book of Mormon's have you given out?

I dont know, a bunch, maybe like 20, probably more.

How often do you have district training?

every wednesday, those are normally pretty good, elder wilson is pretty good at doing those.

Have you learned anything interesting in that training?

sort of, he mostly just goes over random things we can focus on when we teach to do for people. one time we went over the stop smoking program, which I'm glad I got to learn better, did zak ever do that?

How many in your district?

6, 2 sets of sisters 1 set of elders

Let's talk about hair: do you comb your hair?

some times i'll do it with a comb but always with my fingers or something

do you put any product in your hair to "fix" it?

keratin, a product of my own body (fingernails)

 

Do you have to wear a helmet when you ride a bike in Canada, is that a law, or does the church require you to wear one?

I dont think it is by law in canada, but I'm pretty sure the church requires it, so I always wear one.

do you tuck your pants inside your socks when you ride your bike?

nope, i havnt had any problems or anything like that, when I feel my pant leg touching anything I'll just push the fold over to the other side (I hope that makes sense)

Any food mishaps this last week?

nope, well sort of. we had a meal every day this week which was awesome. but on wednesday a recent convert (patrick) out of nowhere kind of decided he wanted to feed us, so he took us to a buffet at like 2 even though we told him we were being fed a meal later that day, so that was a little hard to fit all that food down.

Any exercise this week?

just jogging

did the Youth basketball game happen on Wednesday? If yes, how did it go; did many show up?

yup, it went pretty well. there were 6 youth there and a less active (like age 50's) and his step son (18) showed up and the son had a great time with the youth. the one problem was that early on the less active dad twisted his knee and now there is possibly some ligament damage (ouch). aside from that all is well. also next week should have some more nonmember friends of youth as well as an investigator and his friend, so it should be great. We did play this time because there werent too many people, but next time we probably wont.

find any new people to teach this last week?

yesterday actually we found a guy as we were knocking on doors named owen who we talked to for like an hour. apparently he was taught by missionaries before as well.

have any investigators at church on Sunday?

sadly no, 1 wanted to come to church so he could pray on saturday, we let him in and taught him a lesson, but he just wont go to church for some reason. Also when we were in ward council some random guy walked in, we went to talk to him and he told us that he just moved here and was looking for a church to go to for him and his family. he said he was going to go home and get dressed for church then come back, he didnt come back :(

what are your plans for pday?

we're going in a park in oshawa today to play ultimate frisbee, soccer, or football, whatever we feel like.

The little machine in your car that tells if you are driving safe or not, how often does that "start over" for your driving? Like if you take a corner too fast, it records that, does it keep track weekly, and if you go over your quota of too many fast corners for that week, you can no longer drive? How does that work? How often do you get a clean slate? How are you doing with your driving?

technically it never starts over your whole mission, but if you drive well (dont get any violations) for a while then that kind of over shadows the negative. If you eventually get yellow dotted or red dotted, you cant drive for whatever length of time, depending on how many times in the past you had to be penalized. I actually am not driving this transfer because elder wilson technically should have been driving the whole time but he wasn't allowed to drive for 1 transfer cause he got red dotted. so now he is driving because his penalty time is over.

What fast food restaurants have you eaten at in Canada?

mcdonalds, dairy queen, tim hortons. surprisingly there are not very many mcdonalds here compared to america, but there is a tim hortons on every corner.

Zak and I have been talking about "key Indicators" today. Are you keeping track of key indicators? How many do you keep track of, how do you like it; does it help you at all? Do you report those to your mission president?

yup, every missionary in the world has and reports key indicators. I think there are like 8 or something, I cant remember. they are in the planner to record each day. 1 person in the companionship sends them to the president each week, also we report them to the zone leaders.

Do email your mission president every week?

yup, really just a little one though. just saying how i'm doing, how the companionship is, and how our investigators are doing.

do you remember any songs you sang for church on Sunday?

yes, an interesting one that I liked the words to but didnt really recognize. I think it's called "come, rejoice" I think it is hymn #6. Oh yea I dont remember if I told you this but many weeks ago we had a young women's cake auction/talent show. one thing in the talent show was a guy and his mom played a duet of "if you could hie to kolob" the mom on piano, the son on electric guitar, it was really cool. you and beebee should do that.

is there much singing going on in your apartment?

nope not really.

anything you need?

I think I'm gonna want an ankle brace actually. I always twist my ankles really easily for some reason and I already have once or twice (not very badly just hurt a day or 2). I actually checked out the ones in walmart today, and the only one that seemed like it would work decently was 35$ and it wasnt even as good as the ones at home. where do you buy those? if you think it would be better just to send one to me that would be fine too.

thats about it, I love you all
Quinn.

Received Monday, July 14, 2014

Thank you for the letter! and thanks Christopher for the quick update, I noticed the "not going to cleveland too" I thought it was funny, a guy in the ward told me about lebron, I have much more respect for him now. Also Christopher, my friend is currently making an online settlers of catan board, maybe i could get you in on that and that can be all you have to do... except thats more programming, but whatever.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! kinda jealous youre going to the blue man group, that should be super cool and fun, a little different than les miserabe. I think dad should just buy 1 lottery ticket some time, my guess is we would win at least 50,000 or something.

I've seen people eat the whole apple before, I think its weird, i equate it a little with eating the entire seed of a sunflower seed (shell and all), you can do it and it wont kill you, but its weird.

How is your haircut??

good, I feel like it's exactly how it normally is when you cut it, so i think i'll just say the same thing next time i get it cut.

I hope you don’t carry around $150 in your pants pocket!! I hope that is more like $20 in your pocket…(go ahead and hum that little song….)

took me a little to figure out what you were referring to, very funny mom I laughed out loud and read it to my companion, he didnt think it was as funny as i did.

Did you get your PMG back….you misplaced it last week.

not yet, very likely today though. i forgot to call them about it last week so they didnt bring it, but when we go to oshawa today they should have it... as well as my towel i forgot there. but dont worry i actually had a replacement towel, thanks to nana.

Remember one week you talked about wanting to eat that “duck” egg, Balut?? Candice told me that she has a friend in her ward from the Philippians. She serves Balut to the missionaries when they come over for dinner!! WE think it is gross.

it sounds pretty cool to me, still havnt had it yet though.

Anything new and interesting/odd that you have seen in Canada?

well the cross the street sign (like the walking man things at the stoplights) are a little different. the ones in the US are more like a regular walking person, but the ones here are like strutting, its really funny. and they have feet. I'll try and take a picture of it one of these days.

How was church on Sunday?

good, I feel like elder's quoram is always really boring though, it tends to be old men arguing about silly not super gospel related subjects. like this sunday we spent about half an hour talking about why there isnt something in the bible that lays out exactly what you are supposed to do and what you arent supposed to do within the church organization instead of letters about specific members. whatever its ok.

Ask some of the youth if they go on Trek there in Canada! Tell them about yours. Tell them your sister is going. Find out if they do it!

will do, i havnt heard anything about it.

How are your investigators?

we got a new one yesterday, its a young guy named joey (like 15), hes super cool and seems pretty interested. and hes super down to play basketball on wednesdays. we're starting that this week.

on sunday we got a text from an investigator who we were pretty excited about that said that his wife was anti and didnt want him to meet with us any more, too bad. he'll get his chance eventually though.

How do you like your ward mission leader?

hes really good. he is like 50 something i think. he was born in jamaica but moved to england in like his teens, so hes got a pretty good british accent, its cool. also, hes really good and happy to help in any way and good for helping push missionary work in the ward.

Does anyone talk about the book the Power of Everyday Missionaries?

i have heard no mention of that book since ive been here or even in the mtc, slightly surprised about that actually.

Has your mission pres started anything new…programs, rules, ideas?

church wide thing, we are supposed to teach the 5th lesson before baptism, the missionaries now teach the lessons after baptism instead of the members, much more centered around getting them to the temple. the only rules are whats in the white handbook. he is way in to divine planning, planning is super important so pray a lot during it and really focus on listening to the spirit. its pretty cool.

Does your mission pres have children that live with him?  You know, the unmarried kind.

none of the unmarried variety, sorry Christopher, chase and zak.

Any talk about celebrating pioneer day?

none at all, is that this week at some point?

Talk about candy! Have you eaten any different candy while in Canada. I believe the Jensen’s and the Salmon’s both love some sort of Canadian candy. Have you had any that you love?

I actually havnt, the only candy that I remember people saying they love is smarties (canadian m&ms), I'll have to ask some people what the best ones are.

Also this week was transfers! neither of us are transfering and neither are anyone else in the district. apparently like half the zone is leaving though. aside from that I really cant think of any highlighting news from this week, last week went pretty bad numbers wise, lots and lots of canceled appts and not many listening when we talk to them.

alright, I love you all!

Quinn

Received Monday, July 7, 2014

Cool news from this week thanks!

too bad the US lost but from how they were supposed to end up that seems pretty great actually, i still bet they wouldve been better had they had donavan. Also good argentina is winning, the final four already seems crazy though, i feel like the world cup happened fast.

Also glad your garden is working out pretty well so far. I dont remember ever having cucumbers from there, I guess youre trying to spread your roots a little wider (pun intended)

Too bad G-man is sick, hopefully he feels better soon, its a good thing his mouth thing isnt near as bad any more though. Also this week I got mail from someone this week (no name anywhere), it was a church program that had notes and stuff all over it. it was the program from when the Becerra's spoke, pretty cool they got their picture of the cover too. So whoever sent that, thanks. isnt it sister Hagen who normally does that? or am I crazy?

Is the song, Oh Canada, in your hymnbook?

No, but in many of the hymn books in the chapel, there is a paper with the words and notes glued in on the end, it was kinda funny.

Did you sing any patriotic (American or Canadian) songs in church on Sunday?

nope, just a regular meeting. the canada festivities for church was all last sunday

Tell about your new mission pres! How did you meet him?

President Clayton is super cool and super loving. When we met him, it was kind of like a regular zone training except in the beginning he talked to us for a while, then he left and had us each come in 1 by 1 to give interviews while sister clayton talked to us. When they were both there in the beginning they put up a little slide show thing that they said their daughters (both grown and married, so just president and sister clayton in canada) made. that was good and pretty funny (she made fun of the tux he wore to their wedding and random stuff like that). actually as part of the slide show there were several pictures of them out on Huntington Beach which was cool cause I knew exactly where they were and stuff. He was an OB/GYN, she was a stay at home mother but after the kids grew up and moved out she got her bachelors in religious study. Overall they were both super cool, loving, and they just seem pumped to be here. oh yea, the interviews with here were super quick though (like 1 minute basically) so that wasnt much but thats ok.

Did you get your hair cut last week? If yes, how did it go?

nope, I will this week, a member actually gave us coupons this week for 5$ hair cuts so that worked out. I dont remember what you do on the sides for me, I think it is normally like a 4 or 5, I'm just gonna say 4 and see what happens. Hopefully you dont look at that in horror as you read this.

How much cash do you keep in your pocket? How do you like the colorful money?

I still need to take a bunch of money out from when I first came and exchanged a ton of money, so basically I think I have about $150, I will definately take some out though. The color money is pretty funny.

Do you sweat when you ride your bike? Does your bum hurt? Does your man-bag throw your balance off?

yes, not too bad though I'm used to sweating and I dont get sweat stains on my shirt yet so I'm good. nope my bum is perfectly fine at the moment, as well as when I ride the bikes. and yes, it's annoying but not too bad, I just have to throw it back around to the back when it comes to the front.

Were you able to get a youth basketball game going this week?

nope not this week, we'll do it next week though, we couldve probably implemented this week but we didnt for no particular reason. I'm hoping we dont get too many people, the gym here is one of those wierd half size ones so you cant fit a 5 on 5 in it

Compared to our Ward, is your ward bigger or smaller, or the same?

smaller for sure, about 60 people I would guess show up each week.

What did you do for exercise today?

... nothing sadly, I just took a really long time getting up and ready

What are you doing for P-day today?

hopefully ultimate frisbee or football, but its kinda been raining on and off here, so it might not work out that way.

Is there much talk from the people about the World Cup?

not too much, some people excited about it, more canadians annoyed at foreigners waving foreign flags all over, its pretty funny when we get that.

Zak just looked up this statistic: population of Canada: 34,000,000      Population of California: 38,000,000

There is something like 75% of all canadians live within like 50 miles of the border, people here go to Buffalo for quick trips all the time.

How was your food this week? Any tales to tell?

good. We went to 1 home in a family in Ajax (so normally couldnt feed us before) and the family is very much in to football (football cups like us I thought it was funny) The mother didnt really like sister missionaries in general, too girly. when her husband was investigating the church she requested elders because she thought the sisters would be too cry-y and emotional for her husband, so that was kind of funny.

We saw video on Instagram of Lizzie Walking…..sweet!

so crazy!

Oh, Kylie got her recommend for her Patriaracle blessing. She will get her appt with Patriarch McEwan soon.  Not a question….sorry

wow thats awesome news! patriarchal blessings are awesome, mine was kind of a turning point for me. its really cool because it helps you to realize more of what Heavenly Father knows you can be if you work hard

What did you study in PMG today?

I actually didnt read out of PMG today. we had exchanges with the zone leaders friday night and I was in oshawa for a day, that was pretty fun and cool. the only problem is that I left my PMG over there, whoops, I can get it today.

Alright thats about it!

I love you all!

Quinn

Received Monday, June 23, 2014

Dear Family,

first off, really crazy that Zak is home! Congrats Zak! We were talking to a recent convert (Patrick the Scottsman) on saturday and Elder Wilson mentioned his brother on his mission and I realized you were actually home at that moment!

Where do you normally sit in sacrament meeting, front, middle, back?

the middle, we try to sit next to our investigators or returning less active members, but none of them showed up yesterday! very sad, they can always come next week though, we'll work on them.

Also I have forgotten to say, we have an intermediate hymn (between the speakers, I forgot what theyre really called) every time, and every time we stand for it, I always think "wow Mom would love this"

Do you go to the Gospel Essentials class?

yes we do, there is a guy who returned from his mission a year or 2 ago who teaches it named stephen (pronounced Stefen) hes also super good with coming out teaching with us.

Did you have some dinner appts last week?

yes, i think it was this last week when we went to the Cain's house, we had ribs, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes, a very American meal it was delicious. The Cains are actually Stephen's Mother and Step-Father, so stephen was there too. the mother is indian (or something like that, no accent or anything) the father is British, like born in england, moved to canada in his 20s but he has no accent, its wierd.

What and where did you eat for your big meal on Sunday?

I had no big meal planned, actually last night I didnt feel too hungry but I wanted something sweet so I got a big bowl of Ice cream and some carrot cake a member gave us like last week. halfway through i realized I really was hungry and felt a little sick, i guess i couldve seen that coming, but dinner time was over to we went out. luckily that night at like 7:30 Patrick felt like cooking us up some steak, delicious.

What kind of car do you drive?

Subaru Impreza

On my car, the speedometer shows the miles per hour big and the kilometers per hour small. How is that on your car? I think your speed is by kilometers per hour, right?
Kilometers is the big one and miles is the small one. yes the speed is by kmph

Heather wants to know if you have found the Canadian people to be very polite?

not necessarily, a canadian youth in the ward told us that its only the way north canadians who are super polite.

You never said anything about your white pants when you baptized someone last week! Did you wear yours, did you roll them up? 

yes I wore mine, Elder Wilson and I just rolled them up (on the inside) then used a bobby pin to keep it there.

Maybe you wore something provided there at that building? 

Elder Wilson said I should probably have a white tie on when I do it too, so we found one in the building.

Talk about that! AND, did you have to quickly go over the blessing to have it correct in your mind? 

Yes I went over it quickly before hand, its not too tough though.

Talk about that baptism! Will you continue to visit and teach those people a little more?

We will not, and we never have visited them. The Sisters in Ajax taught them, and will continue to teach them a little more, I guess we could hop the border and go teach em ourselves though.

Also yesterday, Mark and Leslie got confirmed, I did one and Elder Wilson did one and I did one. It was my first blessing actually, all went well, it was cool. The priesthood is good. I dont remember If i told you this or not but we are doing the ordinances instead of the members because Mark and Leslie may or may not be homeless (they are) so they dont have cell phones to talk to them when we want. Because of that, its hard to ask them who they want to do it so the ward mission leader just decided we would do it to make things easier. I dont know how the sisters first came in contact with them, but the sisters basically just taught them whenever they saw them.

that reminds me, big news from last monday night! President Scott who leaves in like 2 weeks, changed it so that now missionaries can go anywhere within the mission boundaries, indstead of just the area boundaries. Before we could only go within the city limits of Pickering, now we can go to Pickering and Ajax (the ward is Pickering/Ajax). so technically we could go teaching all over ajax if we felt like it, but we wont. We feel like the point is more so the sisters can pass off an investigator to us or we could pass one off to them if either one of us feels the other companionship would be better suited for the other.

Suit Pants: I took from one of your comments last week, you dripping food on your pants, that you have washed your washable pants…is that true? How did that work with your pants? Dad thinks that you just spilled on your pants but you have not washed them. Please explain.

The pants I was specifically talking about were my dry clean only suit pants, so they are just sitting bundled up in a corner in my closet waiting to be dry cleaned some day (along with 2 ties). and it wasnt actually food I spilled on them, I remember it was actually some mud that got on them when we were biking. But I have spilled food on other washable pants, they have been washed, all is well no food remnants.

What are you doing for p-day today?

going to Oshawa again to play some sort of sport, we might for a time play what they call kill ball, which is actually just that free for all dodgeball game that steven taught us that one time, very fun.

Have you had a chance to run on that beautiful path across the street from where you live?

yes, we also run along the beach at lake ontario on that road at the bottom of the street.

Has the weather been fine for you?

yes, its been really good, 25-30 C each day normally. there was one thunderstorm one day that was pretty cool. at one point we had to go from the dinner appointment with the caines to the car and we got drenched. that was fun. luckily we were not biking that day.

I have forgotten to say that we have been doing a bunch of biking here actually so we can stay under our allotment for kilometers for the month (2000). I actually have enjoyed the biking a lot, its a good way to get rid of extra energy.

Are most the people that you talk to Canadian or American?

Mostly Canadian, Ive really only talked to a couple straight up Americans.

One cool thing about here that I've talked about is that there are tons of people from all over the world. And because of that and since the world cup we have seen all sorts of flags all over people's cars, houses, everywhere to support their country its really cool, I try to talk to them about the world cup sometimes. I really like the world cup updates too, how is argentina doing? also I dont think anyone home told me that the heat lost! that makes me happy.

So I remembered another dinner appointment from this week. It was with a single Jamaican woman (older lady) named sister plummer. We met her at a Jamaican restaurant called Patois. Apparently Jamaican food is very spicy, I'm gonna have to get used to it quickly, I was actually sweating a bit by the end, it was good though, I got pulled pork. that is actually a famous jamaican food. Another famous jamaican food is Oxtail which is literally the meat from a cow's tail, which I had the opportunity to eat at a member's house 2 weeks ago. It was pretty good, tasted a lot like regular beef.

Patois: (Pronounced Patwa) it is a jamaican dialect from english. it is mainly used for random proverbs and stuff, its actually kinda cool and sometimes pretty funny. at this patois restaurant there was actually a board with lots of patois sayings on it with the "translations" under them. Also at walmart there are these soda bottles for 88 cents called island soda that actually has patois sayings printed on the inside of the cap. I will give you one with its definition: (tip read it in a jamaican accent)

Patois - fo evry ho der tik in a bush

direct translation - for every hoe there is a stick in a bush for it

meaning - there is a match for everyone

origin - in jamaica when they sell garden hoes to people the only sell them the metal hoe part, so they have to go in to the woods and look for the perfect stick for their height and size.

another one of my favorites:

patois - chikin merry hawk dun ner

direct meaning - when the chicken is having fun, there is a hawk near by.

meaning - danger can be around the corner when youre having fun

Hmm alright, I think that's about it

I love you all!

Quinn