Quinn Serves his Mission in Toronto, Canada: 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.