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