Received Monday, September 29, 2014

So this will be a smaller email and much later than normal because we had a zone vs zone sports day for preparation day! really cool, the zone leaders asked permission from president clayton and he accepted surprisingly. we played all sorts of sports, basketball, dodgeball, a missionary game called chair soccer. it was very fun. we went to the huge chapel in don Mills. 

yes I did get your recording of beebee's song on there which was pretty amazing. I have a flash drive at my apartment that I keep music on to listen to, next week I will bring it and download the song on to it.

alright the questions:

Did you get my mail from a week ago? It has been so long, I really don't remember what in the world I sent....
I did, i got it that monday night. It was a lot of fantasy football stuff, it was great, thanks mom!

 

Has it gotten cold yet? Are you wearing a sweater or a light coat?

it was pretty cold last week, i actually did have to take out the sweater once, but it heated up a lot again this week. so still either short sleeves or long sleeves with the sleeves rolled up.

 

OH! Ask your current companion (I know he has only been out as long as you) if he has bought his Canadian winter jacket yet? Did he come with one, is he getting it in Canada?

he did not come with one, he still has to get one. there is a thrift store DI type place here that every missionary loves that actually has some pretty nice stuff, so we will go there when it is necessary.

 

You working with any good investigators?

A muslim refugee guy named Samim. he is from Afghanistan, speaks farsee. he is really cool, came to church last sunday. He is 29 years old so we felt like he might be a little old to start out in YSA, but sadly he just will not get up for our ward at 9:30 so we will have to pass him off to the YSA elders because their ward starts at 12:00. We introduced him there on sunday.

 

How do you like your Ward Mission Leader?

He is pretty cool. he is probably in early 30s or late 20s. he is from brazil and served his mission in the Amazon.

 

 

Are there any rules with teaching Muslim people? I thought that I heard that if they convert to another religion they could be fair game to be killed by their family if they are so inclined!!

That is true actually. the main rule is just that if they get baptized we are not allowed to post any baptismal pictures anywhere, because other muslims will try to kill them actually, its pretty crazy and a hard thing.

 

Have you gone again to talk to people as they are going to the BOM play? do you think you have spoken to anyone with a real interest? Do you think you have spoken with any Mormon's that are going?

we did this friday. This one I didnt enjoy quite as much, still entertaining but a little bothersome. some missionaries were just trying to pass out as many BOMs as possible, so there were a ton of people walking around basically making fun of it and it bothered me a bit. I have not found anyone of legitimate interest there yet, but other people have, so not too bad. 1 less active guy actually. he has been someone that missionaries in his area (don valley) have been really trying to get in contact with so it was cool to find him.

 

What sports will you play at the ward building today?

Already said above.

 

HEY! I just realized you are no longer with the companion that happily cooks for you! Are you making more food for yourself, meaning are you actually cooking? Zak says he "cooks" chocolate milk and peanut butter sandwiches. I mean cooking with a pot or the oven.

i cook spaghetti, burgers, cereal, and boiling water to pour in oatmeal. we eat a ton of pizza pretty much, which i'm fine with, i love pizza.

 

How often do you have district meetings?
weekly so long as there is not a zone thing that week, which this last week was actually only our second district meeting this transfer, we have just had a ton of zone things.

Any zone meetings coming up?

nope

 

I NEVER see your face show up on the FB page of your mission. I will keep watching and hoping.

there might be a picture of our zone vs zone preparation day hopefully, that should be cool.

 

How are you sleeping? falling to sleep fast? do you feel tired like you'd like more sleep?

i fall asleep very fast, its nice. I would love more sleep but I dont necessarily need it.

 

Have you eaten (recently) any good Canadian candy? If yes, what?

Sort of. I have referred to Tim Hortons (more popular than mcdonalds) before, and they have recently come out with an oreo doughnut, which is amazingly good. it tastes like a crispy creme doughnut with creme filling.

 

Alright I'm about out of time I will write more next week

I love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, September 22, 2014

that seems all good with BYU and Chase. 

I was only sort of able to see his post. was there a picture with it? that was funny from his coworker though. not sure how you survived that without AC thats pretty crazy it got that hot inside the house. i hope you went to the pool plenty. 

also 1 quick thing, i saw that on the ward programs, the ward had put my direct pickering address on there. it would probably be a little important to either get that changed to my toronto address of the mission office address, otherwise the new missionaries in pickering will probably learn pretty well everything that goes on in our ward thanks to sister hagen sending the programs. 

Thats crazy beebee gets to do her own song during sacrament! i dont really think youre necessarily supposed to play guitar during a sacrament meeting, but i'm glad it's happening anyway.

do you do service? If yes, what day, what do you do?

not really, at least no consistent service time. we have helped someone move as well gone and given blessings to some members in the hospital.

 

where are you in your BOM reading? Tonight I will be around Alma 61 or 62 where Pahoran explains to Moroni why he hasn't sent help to those fighting the Lamanites. It's a good part. This is just after Moroni sent Pahoran a scathing letter.

I am in about 2nd Nephi 4 i think. I recently decided I wanted to spend a little time each morning reading it straight through like a book instead of just by topic, so I make sure to try and read at least 10 minutes a day. I read slow though, during that time i only get through about 2 chapters. I think I want to spend a little time reading through the new testament as well or at least from matthew to acts. I've already read through John earlier in my mission.

and yes I remember that story and I remember you love that one. that one is a good one.

 

What are you studying in your PMG?

I dont normally follow through specifically, just depending on what we are teaching that day I will look at what I feel will be the most useful.

 

Talk about General Conference! Will you watch at your regular ward building?

I think we might go to the stake center building actually (Don Mills, basically toronto also) that building is ridiculously huge, it has 3 floors and 2 sacrament rooms.

If we start watching at 9, then you watch your session at 12 and 3?

hmmm i actually have no idea, I will let you know another time

Do you think you will take notes? Will you use a certain notebook to take notes in?

yes I will. I have 1 notebook I generally will write good scriptures in and another notebook I put notes from random things like zone conference or something in, so I will put my conference notes in that one.

Have you thought about it at all? Will you invite investigators to watch?

have not thought too much about the logistics of what we will actually do. But yes we have invited people and will invite many more. actually there are a couple Muslim people we are teaching who are very interested in a modern day prophet and want to see and listen to him. that should be cool.

 

Are you playing sports at a ward building today?

yes we are!

How long does it take you to do your laundry?

about 30 minutes for the washer and 40 for the dryer but we just drop off our clothes then leave back to our apartment and come back to switch them over to the dryer.

Seems like all is well. I do have a good story from this week though. we were walking down the street downtown and this one guy came up to us and said "Hey Elders!" we talked to him, he seemed like a very normal guy, and he said "hey i was baptized in your church about a year ago, you folks like to call me brother Ore, but thats not my real name, my name is Jesus Christ, I'm the Messiah resurrected." he went on to tell us that hes been resurrected many times, that he had seen his body as he left in the spirit form and that he had seen satan in the flesh and body. Apparently he chose to leave our church because we had most things right but we did not follow him exactly. Now he has his own group of people that pray to him and he heals them. When we got back home we looked him up and his records were in our ward list... so he was baptized thinking he was Jesus. the funny thing is that that was the second "Jesus" that we had met in 2 days. this was just the first one that had been baptized. I asked the bishop about him and he said that when he first came to church after he was baptized that this man went up to him and said "hey also if you ever need any help leading or anything just feel free to let me know, I'm always happy to help my children." Obviously Toronto has been blessed exceedingly to have Jesus come in the form of many many people's bodies.

Also this week the BoM play started! We went down as a whole zone on friday (like 20 missionaries) and it was really fun! it was crazy too! within 2 hours I probably talked to about 200 people! it was crazy.

Alright that's about it

I love you all!

Received Monday, September 15, 2014

Glad to see that no one can find a name better than los osos rabiosos, although that is pretty hard. Also good to see that the bears picked it up and byu continues to do well, and that dad knows how to smack talk well with his co-workers. I think dad is forgetting that zak only likes to listen to taylor swift, not any of this 5 seconds of summer business.

I am saddened and embarrassed to say that I did not remember the Rebecca quote, and i couldn't remember who died of an ignominious death. I definitely did catch the princess bride reference though, so i'm glad i got one thing out of those.

When the BOM play comes, will you go and pass out cards, or real BOM's or something? Remember when Zak worked at the play when it came to his town? He enjoyed working there and talk to those people.

We will try to mostly pass out cards and pamphlets, but will happily give book of mormons to those who seem legitimately interested. last year there was 1 missionary who apparently passed out like 130 book of mormons, that is good but sadly most of those were probably thrown away and the mission was actually in a shortage of book of mormons for a little because there were so many passed out. so this year we are trying to pass out the less expensive, less important items like candy.

Tell us how Gerald is doing!

he was baptized!!! finally, we are very glad, as was he. His main friend in the ward is actually a guy that has fairly recently been reactivated within the last few months, so he got to baptize gerald which made both of them very happy. After he was baptized gerald told us he so so great and clean and couldnt wait to share it with his family back in uganda. so he was baptized here and then he will be confirmed next week in his real ward now. he is an awesome dude.

Did you wear your short sleeve shirts yesterday?

no i did not, but my sleeves were rolled up. normally on sundays because i already have to wear a long sleeved shirt under my suit, i just keep that same shirt on through the day so i dont have to change. it actually got pretty cold here this week but we both kept with the short sleeved shirts. sadly i think fall finally started this week, but i guess that means we are just that much closer to the next summer where it will finally be warm again. i am still going as long as i can with the short sleeves though.

In some parts of the US, there was snow last week....Zak got cold at the BYU game on Thursday night. Just saying.

that is crazy... no me gusta. it is so humid here that there really is no in between either, its either pretty hot or pretty cold.

Had any interesting or different meals?

actually recently no, we have been fed a bunch here but not much different. OH! thought of one. so a couple weeks ago a filipino member had us over and he made steak and rice for us. he told us we will have it the traditional filipino way. so he took out a bunch of big ol' leaf things called banana leaves and spread them across the table, then he plopped all the steak and all the rice on the table and he said basically go wild. so no utensils or anything, just eat it all with your hands. it was really really good, you guys should definitely eat like this from now on, it's awesome. and once you're done there is nothing to clean up, you just throw away the banana leaves.

What did you eat for breakfast?

cereal, always cereal... every once and a while a 2 packets of maple and brown sugar oatmeal.

do you help do any part of the sacrament at church?

nope

When you play sports for p-day, where do the balls come from? Who supplies them?

here, the church has the basketballs, they are actually really nice.

Do you pay cash for your bus rides, or do you get a bus pass?

we get a monthly bus pass every start of the month, i actually accidentally washed mine today and it got just a tiny bit warped, but it still works when i slide it so all is well.

Do people every talk or comment on YOUR accent?

apparently californians put more of an emphasis on the first syllable than most people. Every once and a while they wonder why i say about a little weird.

When you meet people, do they ask where you are from? What EXACTLY do you say? Arcadia? Pasadena? Los Angeles?

normally i just say california and that is good enough, but when they ask for more detail i just say arcadia and that it is by LA. when i told 1 guy that today  he asked if i had met a lot of famous people.

Have you gotten close enough to see Lake Ontario?

In pickering i saw it every day, i lived right next to it. Here i have gone down to see it once, our area goes all the way down there (it is south of toronto) but there arent too many houses or people all the way down there so we arent there too often.

 whoops accidently just hit send... that was actually pretty much the end of my email though.

I love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, September 8, 2014

Awesome for BYU! not so much for the bears sadly. Also that mud run sounds pretty awesome, i guess it would be pretty hard to get pictures of that though with the mud and all, did one of your friends have a gopro type device? that weather temperature seems burning hot! that is great. 

I intend to continue wearing short sleeves for as long as possible, the humidity still makes it feel like it's a lot hotter anyway.

Questions:

Is Bastille an individual or a group?

I strongly believe that bastille was once an individual when he first started but now is a band and has been a band for as long as they have been famous. dont remember the 1 guy's name though, hes british.

 

Did you get you get your b-day package? have you opened,  or used the GPS? I put the instructions to the GPS in the box somewhere. Make sure you find them. There was also a car power cord that you plug into your car and the GPS. AND there is a mount for your car and the GPS. Hope you figured all that out. Did you find the camera SD card? It was tiny! What about your contacts, do they look fine? I can't even remember what else was in that box!

All was great! i got it on friday at zone training (which president now wants to be called zone council). Yes I have opened the GPS and tried to use it. Apparently I have to update the maps though because it doesnt know where canada is quite yet. i will do that today. and i saw all that other gps stuff in there, i havnt tried to do much with that yet because i dont have a car right now but it will be very useful in the future. thank you! yes i saw the SD card, i will try to take some good pictures and videos on my old sd card and send it out to you as soon as its full. saw the contacts, that should be great, according to what i have in boxes I have about 2 and a half years worth if i through away the contacts i'm wearing every week, which i tend to wear them significantly longer than that. Also in the box was the short sleeved shirt, which i am currently wearing, a reese's bar which has been eaten, a starburst packet which is half eaten, and 3 ties which are awesome. there is the bright yellow stripe one which was sweet, the stripe green one which was cool too, and my favorite one, the orange polka-dot with fish on it which was awesome. not super sure the orange one is totally approved but i am going to wear it as long as someone doesnt tell me not to. I am currently wearing the green one and have already worn the other 2.

 

So, you must have had zone conference! Tell about that? How far away did you have to drive, or did you take a bus to get there?

this was zone training (council) so it was just our zone there. we met in the chapel that is an 8 minute walk from our apartment. something interesting was that president and sister clayton showed up and the 2 assistants. i think they came to be a part about the talk about the Book of Mormon play coming to town (oh yea that is coming i think friday in 2 weeks). that chapel is a super old chapel but its pretty cool looking, it is at 851 ossington.

 

Do you have/know your address today? Nana wants to send you a letter! (I do too!)

yes!

357 Rusholme Road #105

Toronto, ON

M6H 2Z4

 

Talk about doing your laundry!! I think $7 is a lot each week to do laundry! Is that a shared cost with your companion? Zak said that he always did his laundry with his companion.

thats pretty cheap here. you have to remember that everything is super expensive in canada. that is 7 dollars per person, 2 small washer loads and 1 dryer load. we would do it together except our loads were pretty full most of the time.

 

Do you live in an apartment? Are you many flights up? Is there an elevator? Do you have to walk up?

apartment on the first floor, pretty lucky. there is an elevator.

 

Are you still grocery shopping at Walmart?

yes

Do you walk to the grocery store? 

yes, thats about 8 minutes also.

Do you then just carry those grocery bags back home?

sort of. we have a weird cart thing that we can fit most of our groceries in that we can roll home, then we just carry the rest. there normally alrent too many groceries anyway.

Makes the walk from the car to the kitchen not so bad, I suppose! Do they have regular plastic bags for your groceries there? Or do you have to buy and use special easy environmental bags? You know, that is what you have to do when you shop in Pasadena. NO plastic or paper bags. You can buy them for 10 cents each if you like.

i just found out today that it is about 3 cents per plastic bag! they say nothing about it, it just gets charged. so i guess there is, i never see anyone do any environmental bags though.

 

did you have your baptism on Sunday?

nope :( poor gerald is just in a weird situation and has not been dealt with well. he lives about an hour away by bus now since he moved. technically he is in another ward boundary but hes told us he wants to be baptized here. something new that has changed since zak got back is that we now teach the 5th lesson (laws and ordinances) before baptism instead of after (which was how it was before). basically all gerald needs is that lesson and an interview and he can be baptized and we were supposed to do that on friday and saturday but he had to bomb both,  random rescheduling for work. he did come to our ward on sunday and he bore his testimony! he said that he knows this is the true church and cant wait to be baptized to gain even more blessings than hes already received since first being taught. sadly after sacrament meeting  he kept having to meet up with different ward members (bishop, job finder person, etc.) and by the time he got done with that we couldnt find him to set up an appointment to finally get it done! very sad, he needs to be baptized asap. we will call him today and figure some things out with him (how he needs to meet with us before he can get baptized already, whether it's worth it for him to be baptized in this ward, we have been trying to pass him off but it hasnt been handled well). hes an awesome dude, i feel bad for him, he'll be baptized eventually. really hoping for this sunday whether its in our ward or the one he lives at.

 

so you played sports with different elders last week! How did that go? What did you play? What do you think you will do this week for P-day?

kinda lame, it was raining that day so people didnt really feel like coming (no one in the zone has a car besides the zone leaders) so it was us and 2 other companionships. played a little basketball.

 

How many sisters in your zone? do they ever come to your p-day sports playing?

8 i think.

 

I just google mapped the Church in Toronto - 2 locations - Ossington or McCowen. Which one do you go to? The Ossington Location has a BIG Russian Catholic Church right by it. Very interesting.

yes ossington, we walk by that church all the time. when we try to describe where our church is people think it's the catholic one a lot, its kind of funny. the ossington one actually looks kind of like a catholic one too, there are stain glass windows and stuff everywhere, its interesting. it is super old too apparently 3 different men who eventually became prophets spoke from that pulpit.

Got a little bad news, last thursday we found out we have bed bugs! they have obviously been there a while, i'm guessing the last elders just didnt say anything or something, i dont know. so we had to work like crazy to get rid of them. we were told to get this bed bug powder and spray it all over the bed. we thought it was only on 1 bed because elder burton was the only one who got bit for a while and my bed looked totally clean but just yesterday i found some bites on myself! very sad. our apartment is being sprayed some time this week and at the same time we will basically have to wash all of our clothes and probably end up getting a new bed for myself and elder burton.

on a better, cooler note something awesome happened yesterday. we were visiting a former investigator and knocked on the door. some other guy answered the door and he told us this was a home brought together by several churches for refugees! as we were trying to talk to and see if this guy was interested another guy came up behind him and started listening. the first guy had to leave but then the other guy started asking some questions and was legitimately interested in what we were saying, as we were talking another guy came out and started listening, then more and more people. all of them were listening and asking questions with interest. eventually we were basically standing on the porch teaching the restoration to about 10 different people, we felt kind of like alma and amulek teaching the crowds, it was cool. a couple of the people who stayed through the whole time told us they were very interested and really wanted us to come back so they could hear more. so that was very cool.

oh and on saturday we met the guy with the internet's largest database on John 8:1-11 (the woman caught in adultery) and he asked for us to come back. Super knowledgeable about the bible apparently had read it about 40 times. cool guy.

Alright thats it!

I love you!

Quinn

Received Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Thanks for the update dad!

 you know if you really want to you can just use the playlist i have on my ipod, i already have all of the best music on the anyway. 

Why were so many BYU players on suspension!? thats weird, glad they won though and taysom looked good. 

glad mom got the opportunity to quote taylor swift, it always adds a good bonus to any response if you can explain within the lyrics of a song. 

excellent reading of the BOM, that is a lot of reading!

who are some of beebee's teachers? maybe i know them. 

that was a great joke too... i cant think of a good antenna pun to add to it darn.

Did you get your b-day box? Have you heard anything about it?

nope, hopefully, likely will get it this friday at zone training. i have heard nothing about it.

Transfers! Tell how it went,

went well. we had to get up at 5 in the morning to drive to Brampton stake center, then got in the transfer van a while later to get to the toronto stake center. that is where i met up with elder burton, then at about 2:00 we went off in to the city by bus and subway.

how is your new apartment,

very small, not too good, but thats ok because we arent really there too much anyway.

WHAT is your address

embarrassingly i'm not sure and i forgot my proof of address paper at home (we are at the library right now) but we will be getting on computers again later today probably so i will send it.

how is your companion?

elder burton is an awesome guy. he came out with me, so it's fun both being pretty new.

have you ridden the bus yet? how did you like it?

we ride the bus all over, i like it, its great.

how was your new ward?

interesting, tons of less actives, a bunch starting to come back to church. they also like to call a lot of people brother or sister and then their first name like brother alex or something like that, its a little annoying but whatever. they are happy and very willing to do all they can to help missionary work within their ward though.

Have you seen anything interesting?

the (phonetically spelled) See-in tower, that is pretty cool, its right in our area so we see it all the time. and we've walked through downtown toronto a lot.

where did you email?

library, and probably the ward family history center later.

do you have a washer and dryer in your apartment?

no :( it's about 7 dollars to do laundry though, so for having to pay it's not too bad.

did the last missionaries leave anyone that wants to hear the gospel?

actually surprisingly they did. there is 1 guy who is ready for baptism named gerald, super awesome guy. he actually just moved out of the area but the zone leaders told us to just baptize him this sunday at our ward, so that is what we will do. also there is a lady named janice who they taught once who seems pretty awesome. her brother in St. Lucia (the Caribbean) was a convert and is going on a mission soon, he referred her to the missionaries here. 

what are you doing for pday today??

Sports again! i am always happy with that.

alright thats it,

I love you all!

Quinn

Received Monday, August 25, 2014

First off thanks for all the package stuff mom! that sounded like a ton of work. Interesting football news also.

 

Did you get a text about your birthday on your birthday?

no but we did get a call, which was very funny. so for us, after 9:30 on transfer nights on sundays is when either president or an assistant calls. any time in there, it is very exciting because we dont know whether we will get a call or not. so at about 9:45 last night we got a call from president!  He started out by saying "hey we dont have any transfer news but we do have something much more important! it's elder Cole's birthday today!" and so after that him and sister clayton sang happy birthday and that was it. it was very funny.

Did anything in particular happen birthdayish on your birthday?

Well the call from president. not necessarily birthdayish but i did speak a quick 5 minute testimony on prayer yesterday during sacrament meeting. it went well, people liked it. I dont think too many people knew it was my birthday, i didnt necessarily broadcast it, i actually forgot it was my birthday several times.

TRANSFERS!! Were you, did you? My guess is no, but what is your news?

Yes! I am going to South Toronto! that includes downtown and all the more famous parts of of toronto. it is a bus area too, i should be talking to about 50 people at least a day! also elder wilson is leaving to kichner which is down by detroit.

You must also have some new companion news to…spill…

my new companion is Elder Burton, which is one of the people who came out with me, I dont know him too well but the little I've talked to him, he is a pretty cool guy. It is sad to leave this area and all the people but I am still excited for the new area. We are whitewashing in as well so i should be interesting,

How will you find out when your birthday box arrives? How will you get your birthday box?

So once it gets to the mission office, the zone leaders in my new zone can pick it up and drop it off to me once we have our next zone training which should be in about a week or 2. so it is very good that it is going to the mission office instead of my old apartment, otherwise i probably wouldnt see it for months.

Have you heard of any stories from other missionaries that have received boxes from the far away country of America?

elder wilson has received a couple, i'm not sure what stories i can say with that though. i dont know if they had to go through all you did.

Any good food stories this week….dinner appts? Eating out, spilling?

Belut, chicken feet, pig feet, pig head :)

so this saturday we had our ward picnic with the fear factor we were in charge of. Brother Crisostimo, a less active trying to return to church, we asked to help buy the food and stuff which he was happy to do. it was a great success. it was pretty much only youth who were willing to try anything (lame). there was 1 adult who took a chicken foot and ate it. I tried all of it. the belut was a lot like a regular hard boiled egg but with an odd meaty flavor... and a crunch... that one was ok. the chicken feet was actually pretty good, it had like orange sauce stuff on it that tasted good, lots of bones. the pig feet was a lot like eating the leg of a chicken, it was delicious, the skin was very thick though and there was lots of fat. it was good. the face was about the same as the leg. sadly I might not have enough time to upload pictures today there are a lot of good ones, will do it next week. if you want to look up on google what the pig looked like, look up leechon. that is just what it looked like.

How are your investigators doing?

keeshon and ashelle got married this weekend, still havnt seen them since our restoration lesson though :(

Anything different for p-day?

packing a lot, also i'm getting a haircut.

Did you play basketball with the youth last week?

yes, it was good. sadly the youth were gone for a temple trip that night, but for 12 and 13 year olds (nonmember) showed up who the ajax sisters invited, that was good. I think they should get along with our youth pretty well.

alright sorry I will try to write more next week,

outta time.

Love you!

Quinn