Received Monday, January 26, 2015

Awsome news for sam! as far as i can remember sam did not like spanish class in high school, so good ol classic irony we tend to see all the time with mission calls.

i got the same email you got about the mission office, surprising news to me this is out of nowhere.

I think g-man writing different answers on his test is hilarious and something that i am fairly confident i did many times in tests, there was once or twice in which i drew a random picture after every single answer in the test (dragon, wolf, muscle arm, etc.) once you're in high school the teachers tend to find these things slightly more funny.

I'm glad my mention of glebe brought good conversation, i didnt notice any weird words this week though.

that is really sweet about the vaughns, i feintly remember them. that is something i have definitely learned on my mission about everyone having a story. we will stop and talk to random people on the street all the time and they have some ridiculous, crazy story that has made some significant aspect of the gospel permanently imprinted on their minds whether they recognize it or not. there is a quote in preach my gospel that mentions something along those lines, saying that essentially anything anyone says will have some semblance to a truth of the gospel that the spirit has brought them to know is true for themselves. all sorts of members and nonmembers alike have a reason they are the way they are.

The bears have themselves just one more year to stink it up, then they should be good. apparently yesterday was the NHL all star game as well just in case anyone was wondering.

Did you get a package this week?? big yellow envelope??

I did not! i bet i will probably get it later today though, i dont think the mail had shown up yet before we left this morning.

I really thought I sent that ATM card!! I THINK I sent it in a funny pterodactyl card...why can't you hear the pterodactyl go to the batheroom?  Did you get that card? Was there nothing inside that card....no bank card???? remember..... THe card was in a large card size envelope, like 6 x 8 inch.

I dont remember that card, that still doesnt mean i didnt get it though, i will have to check harder, maybe i quickly put it away somewhere when i was busy without even recognizing it.

interesting news having to do with cards this week though. So before when i got that gps map, for some reason the map wouldnt load on to the gps and i didnt have the time to fiddle with it until it worked, so we put it off for a while. this week we had the chance to work on it again. went, looked at it, couldnt figure it out, very annoying. finally i gave up and called the support service lady. she was very good and very nice. apparently the "map" i had gotten was just a one time update and not a map. she then told me that she would refund the money back on the card i bought it with (my credit card) and she showed me the right one to buy actually that would really help. surprisingly it was only 10 more dollars. when i went to get it. very good glad to have it taken care of. for some reason when i went to buy it, the credit card would not go through! kinda weird, i havnt had the chance to try to buy something with it to see if it's actually active or not, so thats a little weird, maybe something happened again where they stopped it because they didnt believe i was actually in canada or something.

 

Talk about your weather this week!

not too cold actually, its been pretty nice. it started out monday and tuesday really cold then slowly warmed up until it went to positive degrees on saturday. its probably about -5 today.

 

Talk about you making moccasins last week!! were you able to buy more hide?

the store was closed so no hide for me last week :( but yesterday the lady told me that through the week her son had gone out and bought some for me! when i asked her how much it was so i could pay her back, she said she didnt know and it didnt really matter any way. very nice.

 

Do you use the term First Nation instead of Indian?  Are they the same thing? Did I just use some terrible slur when I said Indian?

thats probably the worst thing you can say to a first nation person... just kidding not really. a lot of people call em indians and no one would get offended, i pretty much just say first nation instead because it sounds sweet.

 

what items do they sell in a First Nation store??

didnt get to see it, it is closed on mondays :( we did go to some other store though that had a little bit of stuff. they had some super expensive moccasins and lots of cigarettes and other assorted things for drugs. 

 

Any good food stories this week?

hmm this week we ate at a family and made sure to be perfectly on time because last time we got there about 5 minutes late and they had already started eating. they told us (not mad or offended or anything) last time that they did not wait for missionaries in their home.

What are you doing today?

moccasins for real!

How is the family you are teaching doing?

last week we couldn't meet with them :( on monday they had to reschedule because the husband was at a concert kinda last second deal and then the day we rescheduled to (thursday) the wife and son got the stomach flu! so we will meet this week.

 

Candice told me that in her ward, they help the missionaries by marking the Books of Mormon - marking all the scripture mastery. When you give out Books of Mormon, are they previously marked? Just wondering.

i did it once in the beginning of my mission, not too much productive seen from it though with how much time it took.

 

Remember to wash your hands with soap. Touch anything you'd like, just wash later and don't touch your face in the mean time.

soap is overrated

Stay warm.

Have a good joke on hand when needed:

Why couldn't the pirate recite the alphabet?

because he always got lost at C.

 

OH! Griffin will be giving a report on you NEXT Sunday, February 8th!! Think of things you would like him to tell for next week's letter.

cool thing that happened this week. we knocked on a door and a husband and wife answered. they very quickly let us in and told us that they were sorry she had not been baking so they didnt have any cookies for us, but they did have something else for us. apparently the husband is a magician and so he showed us lots of different card tricks that were really cool. She has been singing and doing music about 40 years and she talked a little about all the plays and things she had done. very cool. very good people. he actually taught me a fun, easy little trick in which i can snuff a rubber band up my nose, with magic. We gave them a book of mormon and a plan of salvation pamphlet, sadly at this time they didnt really want to hear the missionary lessons though. Thats ok, planting seeds with them.

Also really quick, kinda gross. this week for the first time in my life i got a stye in my eye! apparently the best way to make it go away is just putting a warm cloth up against it as often as possible and just pretty much waiting until its gone.

alright thats about it, i love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, January 19, 2015

I say that you should capture and slowly train the skunk to be a real pet. that would be pretty cool. i guess beebee is using that church slightly differently than i did. all of my friends all the time would ask me when we were going to "mormon church" again to play dodgeball.

every week i keep trying to remember to bring a ward program here emailing, so i can actually remember what songs we sang but i never remember, maybe next week. there was one song this week that used the word "glebe" in the 3rd verse. it made me laugh to learn that glebe is really a word. i asked a member in front of us after the meeting and she told me it was like a meadow... i responded that i will try to use the word glebe at least 3 times this week.

i think i might have seen that quote or something very similar to it in the past, very true, very cool.

tell sister therman that i agree with any sort of reference to napoleon dynamite or taylor swift any time in church. i quote nacho libre all the time while doing missionary work, "why have you not been baptized!?"

Good missionary work mom! its the small little decisions each day that affect the end.

very exciting about taylor! thats pretty crazy, cant wait to hear sam's

no canadian martin luther king day, i found out this week that here there is at least 1 day every month in which people get work off, even if they have to make up a holiday (civic holiday, family day, etc) it is pretty sweet. january's was already new years day.

Oh, Grandma sent you some actual green money in a letter for christmas, I think, did you get something like that?

yes i did! i got it this week, tell grandma i really appreciate it thank you.

I also sent you a package last week. I am sure you have not received it yet, just keep a look out!

awesome! did you tell me a while ago that you sent up my debit card? i cant remember, if so i have not gotten that yet. also next monday i am going to try to send down to you my sd card so you can see all the new pictures and videos.

Did you get our Christmas card with family picture?

got that this week too, i liked the note saying better late than never.

 

How were your dinner appts last week?

on sunday a member found a recipe for cafe rio pulled pork and made it for us! it was very delicious, didnt taste exactly like it but it was still very good.

 

How is your new family progressing?

we taught them once last week, didnt come to church :( but when we taught them the plan of salvation the wife got all excited and said she cant wait to be able to get a perfect body, then the husband said "does that mean i will be able to walk down the beach with my shirt off again?" very funny. we are meeting them tonight and the member that is coming with us will invite them over for dinner on friday.

 

How is your (sometimes) rash under your eyes? Have you had it much?

really not too much recently, right now its actually pretty bad on the corners of my mouth for some reason though, very annoying. i try and put aquaphor on it as much as possible.

 

Does the air feel dry there? Do you get a bloody nose? (that is what happens when the air is so dry). Does your face feel dry?

the air is exceedingly moist, we get tons of moisture from lake ontario and it makes it very humid. so no dry stuff outside of the corners of my mouth. i actually have never gotten a bloody nose from dry air before.

 

How are you lips doing for being chapped? Any issues?

nope, all is good outside of previously mentioned twice problem.

Does your nose run in the cold? mine does....

like crazy, it is annoying but unavoidable, just wipe it on your sleeve a lot, that normally does the trick.

 

Does someone in the office just chose who in the companionship will be the driver? (And that is not you for this companionship, right?)

i guess, i really dont know, they just tell us on the day of transfers.

 

What are you doing for P-day today?

making moccasins! hopefully at least. we were at a first nation member's house and she had some extra hide so she showed us moccasin patterns and she told us she would show us how to do it today. sadly she only had enough hide for 1 pair of moccasins so i am going to see if there is hopefully some cheaper hide i can buy in the first nation store there. very exciting.

 

Did you wear your retainer last night? How often do you wear it?

i did! i'd say that i probably wear it about half the time, but i have been trying to improve that.

 

Any good stories from your week?

really nothing beside going to a meeting with ELDER OAKS! also one of the 70 named elder catcher.

yes the apostle came to the mission on saturday, i kinda forgot to mention that last week... whoops. so it was set up that all the missionaries within 3 hours of the brampton stake center could come and the other 1/4 of the mission could listen over some phone thing they set up, this was going to be from about 10-12. after that he was having a meeting with all the recent converts and returning active members at about 3.  then after that he was going to meet with the leadership from all the wards, then leave at 7:30 to somewhere else, very busy day. the only problem was that his plane got delayed and he didnt make it until 1. we found out the night before that it was going to be delayed, so president clayton told us to come about the same time as we would have and he would do training for a time. all of it ended up well. elder Oaks meeting with us was cut short about a half hour and so he invited all of us to stay for the meeting with new members also! He talked about a lot of things. the cool thing that stuck out most to me was when he talked to us about spiritual gifts. different people have different spiritual gifts, (some gift to know, some gift to believe). We can find out our spiritual gifts and use them to the best of our abilities, and along the way we can discover new gifts. also, apparently he didnt get to serve a mission because he was in military but years later his brother served and his family went up to visit him on his mission and he went out with his brother knocking doors for a day, very funny. also during the recent convert meeting he called the book "Songs of Solomon" biblical trash.

 

anything exciting or different coming up this week?

outside of missionary work, nope nothing out of the ordinary. i just recognized that i didnt put that sentance together very well. nothing exciting outside of regular missionary work, not doing anything different this week. there, fixed it.

i guess i would have been better to ask this last week haha

 

Ok, that is the end for me. It is very late. Zak has texted to make sure I was going to write to you. You are being well watched out for! We are grateful you are out serving people and sharing the gospel! It is the greatest gift you have to give.

So far you have a perfect record with me, no forgotten letters!

I love you all!

QUinn

Received Monday, January 12, 2015

Crazy about christie, her cousin paige who emails me sometimes actually let me know she turned in her papers but good to know where she is going, that should be a pretty awesome mission, italian is a cool language.

even more surprising that beebee is changing high schools. if thats what needs to happen and thats whats best then that is awesome you were given that option. it took me a long time (like until senior year) until i finally figured out who i really wanted my friends to be and who i wanted to hang out with, whats funny is that the best friends i wanted were the ones i always ate lunch with and stuff, i just never really wanted to hang out with them much outside of that until senior year. so i'm glad beebee gets what she needs and still gets a legit high school education.

in response to the Heaven story, thats why you either live where it doesn't get cold or you go to canada so you get used to the cold so you don't need that stuff any more!

Questions:

what week are you in for transfers?

i think 3, let me check... yes week 3.

How has the cold been this week? wish you had anything that you don't?

really not bad at all. that coat, although it makes me like a marshmallow man (big and puffy) when i put it on, it doesnt let any cold in at all. so that is a pretty awesome jacket. Also, in like november a member (sister peterson, the missionary mom of cobourg) bought us some nice thick, warm socks to wear when it got cold. so those have been great. so really there is nothing i really need. also i have plenty more to put on when it gets colder, so i am all good.

funny story- we had a zone council (zone training, meeting with just the zone) this week and president and sister clayton came to it and before they left they mentioned that we all need warm winter coats, they were worried for us, all that good stuff. then they mentioned that they looked at the coats hanging up in the other room and there was one that was very thin and just wouldnt work well here. whats funny was that this was my coat (a different one) which actually is very thin but that was all i needed because i was already in a warm suit jacket and i was going home to change right after the meeting. I assured president and sister clayton that i had already been supplied a much bigger and thicker coat. hmmm not that funny in writing, thats ok.

Any freezing rain this week? Any weather that you had to be warned about?

yes, early in the week but it wasnt much so really not a big deal :) nothing really to be warned about except we did get another text from the claytons to the mission telling us that it is going to cool down now and we needed a coat, they said the mission could get someone a coat if they had no means of supplying their own, nice, not needed by me. also yesterday we went up in the boonies of our area, roseneath, and the old people that lived up there said it was really windy and to be careful as we went up there, we did, all is well.

Was the attendance at church better than last week?

better, still not too great though, working on it. the ward made the ward mission plan this week and they asked each family to chose 1 person this year to "rescue" (less active member or nonmember) and bishop has asked us to follow up with families on that and see how we can help, so thats sweet.

Any dinner appts coming up this week?

yes! every day but today and tomorrow.

I can't remember, do you take your shoes off at the doors of the homes you go in to?

every time. it is weird now when people tell us to leave our shoes on. it is always a little funny when i notice in those "the district" videos that their shoes are on and i think its weird.

Find any new investigators last week?

yes! a family! going by a former, they moved away but the new people invited us in. a family! mom, dad, 2 young kids. they are cool, nice people. the dad doesnt believe in god really but is nice about it, the wife got in a car crash when she was younger and her friend died (sad) and she broke her neck, but she healed completely and is totally fine now, she believes God helped her :) she told us "instant cross tatoo'd on the back of my neck for that one." well, at least its religious.

Any interesting stories?

that one about those 2 is the coolest one. hmmm... interesting story. last week we had dinner at the relief society president's home. she asked us to go by her son and his new nonmember wife at their home, not exactly to teach a lesson, more just to get to know them and so they can know who we are. He hasnt been able to come to church because he can hardly sleep because of a crazy health condition. apparently this son, when he was on his mission, he was in a nasty appartment and his eyes started turning red and started forming a bad rash under his eyes (very similar to mine) they sent him to the doctors and the doctor prescribed him some topical steroid. it worked, every time he stopped using it, the rash would come back. he kept using it for the course of his mission, then a year after he came back. eventually he recognized there probably was some problem. apparently now his body developed a need for that topical steroid and now to get off of it he basically has to just deal with an awful, itchy, painful rash for months. tough.

alright that feels like way too little but i cant think of much else, sorry.

i love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, January 5, 2015

Exciting for taylor and sam with their mission papers, that will be cool to see. also the 4.0 from zak is pretty good too.

I didnt even know the football playoffs had started, thats cool. everyone here is watching the U19 (i think) national hockey games, USA lost this week to Canada just barely apparently.

I think i kind of sort of understood what went on with the zak text thing, very funny, i think something like that has probably happened a few times.

excellent new twist on the new years game, many people have asked me what i normally do at home for new years. when i tell them we do a trivia, they always think its kind of funny, would have been even better if i told them that my family had to take shots as punishment for getting answers wrong (and yes club soda is disgusting)

the gospel is good, helps people all the time. 

questions:

what happened with you on New Years? Anything?

not much special, on new years eve we were supposed to be in our appartment by 7 so we can avoid all the drunk crazies. then on new year's day, a person in the ward did her new years tradition of having the missionaries over for waffles with ice cream in the middle and raspberries on top. pretty dang good. then later that day we were at a dinner appointment and we got a call from a ward member telling us there was going to be freezing rain and not to go out and a text from the mission telling us not really to go out either, so we were a little stuck at that member's house for a little bit so we helped them take down christmas decorations then drove home (very slowly) for the night.

Did you have appts. on New Years Day?

aside from those 2 members nope, we tried, everyone told us to call em again in the new year, so the freezing rain didnt cause too much of a loss.

Did you talk about the Rose Parade?

nope, i entirely forgot about that until you wrote it in this letter, so i heard no talk about it from anyone else either.

How has the work gone this week?

a little tough because everyone said they were busy this week :(, but we got a couple good lessons in, reconnected with a less active guy who we talked to before, and he came to church.

What are you doing for P-day today?

one of our "investigators" Caelan (a 9 year old son of a member) is having his baptismal interview today and they called and asked us yesterday if we had a little extra time. we told her (the mom) yes, and she said "well maybe we can bring some of our remote control helicopters and fly them around the gym with you guys for a little bit" so that should be really cool, fun.

any good food stories this week?

nope, none outside of what i told you.

Weather still the same?

sadly, its trying to start to get cold now. that freezing rain previously mentioned, then it happened again on saturday night and then it heated up all of a sudden a little more sunday morning so all the snow and stuff turned super sloshy, so everyone freaked out and didnt go anywhere or come to church. it was like 20 people there that sunday. but apparently there should be a cold front moving in the next week or 2 sadly, so much more canada-esque weather going on now.

Any good stories?

well sunday night we called one of the less active people we were teaching, to see if she had a ride to church. she said she was not coming because her husband just went in the hospital because he had bad numonia (i know it starts with a p but however you spell it) and apparently had a heart attack also! we asked if he would like a blessing, she said yes he would love that. the next day at church, we asked in elder's quorem who would join us. the only one who volunteered was this other less active man who came to church (previously mentioned in another question). this man has the Melchizedek and has been living the commandments so it was all good for him to come with us. when we came to the hospital the sick man, also a member but inactive, who had previously told us he was not interested in coming back said that last night he had prayed for the first time in a long time and that he really needed to make some changes in his life and to get back to church and start living the way which he knew he needed to! We gave him a blessing and since then he has been recovering extremely well. really cool.

How was your Sunday? Investigators? any good questions in class?

no investigators, everyone was too scared to drive in the slosh, lame. testimony sunday was good, one member came up and bore his testiomony on the power of testimony as he was working on spreading the gospel, then most people after that talked about something along those lines. then after sacrament meeting a member came up to us and asked us to teach the Youth class because apparently the Youth teacher didnt show up and forgot to tell anyone to sub. so an interesting day at church.

alright thats it,

I love you!!

Quinn

Received Monday, December 29, 2014

good stories, bad skunk smell. i didnt smell any skunk smell through the computer so at least it wasnt that bad.

good you got to see so many old people that i dont know, i completely forgot that the steimle's moved, and that erica moore got back from her mission. speaking of people that were in the ward a while ago, did i ever mention that there is a missionary in our zone who is best friends with trey huntsman! pretty crazy, i told him i was friends with him when i was very young. apparently trey is doing well, on his mission somewhere in south America I think.

Yes I know very well what con te partido is, although i would not have if you would not have put the english title. thats the song that makes you cry because it makes you think of steven being on his mission.

"Zak turns 22 (think of Taylor Swift) on Tuesday!! he wants Trix and Chewy Cookies.

Zak will probably go back to BYU on Friday or Saturday. He will drive back with Taylor. (Jensen).  (So many taylor's!!)"

thanks for clearing that up, although it would be pretty sweet if zak got to drive taylor swift home. and yes i did laugh when you mentioned taylor swift with 22, i think you very much enjor referencing taylor swift in as many letters to me as possible, its like the new buns joke. keep em coming

QUESTIONS:

Was your companion done talking on the phone with his family when you were done?

he got done about 5 minutes after me, dinner hadnt been finished yet either, so perfect timing with everything.

what did you eat for dinner there at that house?

ham, mashed potatoes, corn, ummm there were yams but those are gross. there was more but i cannot remember.

were there children at that house?

yes, a 20 year old child and a 14 year old.

 

what are you doing today?

i think we are going to oshawa for sports today because it is the last week of transfers

did you sing Ring out Wild Bells in church on Sunday? We did!

We did!! i was very excited when i saw that. i leaned over and told the person next to me it was my favorite song, she said she liked it too and that it was too bad we could only sing it once a year. i sang loud and proud. the organ probably couldnt get quite as great as sister to-oh's though.

 

Tell us a good story!!

i think i forgot to tell you that i was giving a talk at church on sunday... so i gave it. i talked about unity and used a really cool metaphor i found from another old talk. so redwoods grow about 300 feet tall but apparently their roots only go about 3-6 feet deep, the only way in which they can survive any sort of poor weather is that their roots stretch outward really far and intertwine with the roots of other trees, making their base stronger as well as the base of the other tree stronger. i thought it went OK, not quite enough preparation for a 20 minute talk, but i did got a lot of complements. One family said "that was a great talk, and you have REALLY great hair, very very nice hair" so i will chalk that one up as a win for me.

end of story

 

Any transfer news?

nope, elder de waal and i are both staying here.

hmmmm really that might be about it,

I love you!!

Quinn

Received Monday, December 22, 2015

Accidently only sent my letter to mom. mom probably already took care of it but if not here it is:

Mom, i think your last several letters have all been sent around 3 or 4 AM, thats crazy, tooooooo late.

Too bad about the bears, jay cutler is lame he can go now.

i am unsure why a white sheet is necesary here.

the idea of an albert/joy combo sounds pretty amazing, i can imagine what it very likely sounded like and its pretty sweet.

last night we had a really good meal appointment with roast, ham, mashed potatoes, and gravy. the gravy was really really good, i asked how it was so good and how she made it... it was from the drippings from the meat.

i remember very well chase's concussion videos, they were very funny. oddly enough that actually came up a few times this week. i talked to a few people about snowboarding and how my brother got a concussion and lost his short term memory for a little while.

i havnt the feintest idea of what either of those songs you are singing are... from looking at the second one's "lyrics" you put, i think of the harry potter theme.

questions:

Last time you thought our time would be around 4 or 5 your time. Is that still a go?

probably about 3 or 4, more closer to 4. so still a go.

Google chat?

of course, thats the best one.

How long will you get to chat, do you have a time limit?

i have heard a few random missionaries come up with some time limit of an hour but likely that is some random time created by rumor. i have heard no actual full declaration from the mission president about any limit so i dont believe there is any.

Will you get to chat at the same time your companion does?

yup, he actually wanted to use their tablet to use facetime, and they have plenty of computers and technology.

Anything else about the chat we should pre-discuss?

ummmmm nope i dont think so, i'm just proud of myself for giving a specific time instead of just after dinner. my goal is accomplished.

 

How about your Christmas packages....did you get 2 of them? (Sadly, I have never sent anything else...)

i did! i opened up the envelope with the sweet singing tie, i have decided to wear that one every day until christmas because it is so sweet. the only problem is that its so thin i have to tie it around like crazy to make the knot an acceptable tie, so it always ends up super short. there is nothing a sweater cant fix.

Did you have your Christmas Conference? How was it? What happened during the "receive your Christmas package" time?

yes, it was very good. something big that has changed since president clayton got here is that now we teach the lessons from the pamphlets, so most of the main instruction part was more how to break down the pamphlets, decide which pictures to point out, which text boxes to have them read, all that good stuff. but once the christmas conference part started, president and sister clayton put on bright green and red jackets and santa hats and they told us about their tradition to have their family sing the 12 days of christmas and have an action with it. they told us we would do it, so they broke us up in to 12 groups to sing each of our parts. it ended up very good and funny. then a couple random devotional things. all good and fun. during my "receive christmas package time" nothing really happened. we just picked up our stuff and went home. i did not get a box there because mine was sent directly to my home. which was good because i didnt have to take mine home, it was already there waiting at my doorstep. i am proud of myself that is not open yet.

 

What happened during your Christmas sacrament meeting?

lots of songs! many by choir, like 3 trios, 3 by congregation, then at the end like a 10 minute spiritual thought by bishop. all was good. not the most musically talented ward i've been in, but good enough.

any investigators come to church on Sunday?

1 unbaptized child of record 9 year old, so kind of but he's there every sunday. hopefully he will be baptized within the next couple weeks, its just hard to meet with him because him and his mom are super busy all the time. we did also have like 4 less actives come to church though, 1 hadnt been to church for a couple years, super awesome he and his wife came.

How is your weather?

not too bad its been around -2 (from now on i'm only gonna say temperatures in celsuis for simplicity's sake, you can convert that yourself) this week pretty good. last week it heated up like crazy until like 5 degrees and melted all the snow, and hasnt snowed since. apparently it is supposed to snow a bunch on christmas eve though, so this will be my first white christmas likely. that is all good "the cold never bothered me anyway"

What are your plans for today?

ummmm not much spectacular. we are gonna help bishop with some yard work, dinner appointment today with an older lady who is a little crazy but she is awesome. yesterday she told us santa left a couple gifts for us and she gave them to us. it was cologne, very nice she gave it to us, it smelled kinda like old man cologne though. the thought is greatly appreciated, i will wear it tonight for her.

What are your plans for Thursday, (Christmas)?

we are having "brunch" with a family, then at another (less active) family's for a while. pretty much any empety space to be filled in with caroling to random members.

alright thats it until thursday,

I love you!

Quinn

Received, Monday, December 15, 2014

Dad, i'm pretty sure you told me the exact same thing about the daum league before this year started, and every year before that as well. Also it seems like Mom finally figured out how to get the best pictures possible of the family. I think the only way to make it better would be to secretly take pictures of everyone at random times throughout the day and photoshop them all together in to one picture and throw it all in some random background like the pyramids or something.

Questions:

Tonight in my BOM reading to griffin, we came upon (again) someone's ignominious death. Do you remember who that happened to? AND the person he killed to get the ignominious death is one of my favorite people in the BOM.

It was one of the antichrists, not sure i can pull out his name though... hmm wow for some reason right now i cant remember any of the antichrist's names, i'm pretty sure he killed gideon though. right now i'm in mosiah, reading about abinadi.

 

How was church for you on Sunday?

Pretty good, our investigator, Bonnie came again today and had another good day. She is right at the point where a lot of things are starting to click together for her, and thats because she is finally really trying to read the BoM consistently, even though she doesnt necessarily understand all that she is reading the is still receiving the added light and knowledge that is promised by reading it. Also, sadly today elder's quorem class started and there was only the 2 missionaries, the teacher, and one other person there. the elder's quorem president says that the big problem in that is because no one is home teaching! so hes putting a big stress on it. but more good news, we had like 4 less active members come to church on sunday that we have been teaching, and more to come next week if all goes well.

 

Do you remember what songs you sang? We sang It came upon a midnight clear.

I dont know if its a canadian thing or what but always there is one song in the end that no one ever knows, forgot the title of that one. oh i remember the another one we sang "little town called Bethlehem" hmm the more i think about it that title doesnt sound like a real hymn, but the title looked a little like that.

HEY I REMEMBERED HIS NAME!!! i believe the antichrist's name was Korianton? hmm i hope that is at least the name of some antichrist.

 

Who else lives in your "house"? I know you have your own apartment, but wondering, are the other people the actual owners, or are they members of the church? I assume you have talked to them.

no members of the church, i think the owner lives in the house in front of our building. we really havnt talked to the people actually, they are always either gone or inside, we might make em cookies and wish them a merry christmas some time though.

 

Any good food stories?

everyone here is just too white, no weird food made or anything. i did realize this week that about half my ties have some sort of stain on them somewhere though, i just havnt realized it because i can always wear a sweater, but i had to wear a suit one day and i pulled out 3 different ties before i found a clean one. i guess a tie makes a really good bib because only 2 of my shirts have stains on them, and both of those are ink, so i'm doin pretty good with my shirts.

 

any good driving stories?

so there is an active woman in the ward who about 7 years ago was in a bad car crash with a drunk driver, and now has a lot of problems with moving too much and heavy lifting. She has an 11 year old daughter who just got baptized this year because the father was anti, so we are over there a lot helping out. she is super nice and gets us stuff all the time, calls herself the mission mom, she gave us each like 5 pairs of thermal socks and beanies (or touc if i wanna be canadian). Anyway we were over there the other day and we found some tubes of bubble soap in the house and she said we could take them. We discovered that if you go the right speed, if you put the tube outside of the car and lift the bubble wand up just enough it shoots a ton of bubbles everywhere! so dang sweet... the cars behind us didnt think it was as cool as we did though...

 

What is going on for p-day today?

maybe some wood working stuff, really not sure. we went to oshawa last week for sports and the zone leaders told us not to drive out any more on mondays so we can save out kilometers, laaame.

 

have you discussed the google chat or skype call that we will have on Christmas, like where you will be able to do this, etc.?

actually yes we did, probably google chat around 4 or 5 my time. we were at a lady's house for dinner yesterday and she asked us what we were doing for us and she told us to come to her place to do it around that time.

 

I would like to say that I REALLy like having your emails come earlier. That is nice.

my companion likes to email before we go shopping unlike most, i will keep that in mind though

So we had our regular ward christmas party last saturday, which was pretty sweet. there were tons of less actives there that we invited. one baked a cake that was like 9 inches tall, pretty awesome. bonnie was going to go to that too but she took some pain pills (because she has broken ribs) and said they make her a little loopy so she said she shouldnt go. pretty funny. Also the young men's president set up a blue screen (like a green screen but blue) and had it set up so people could take pictures in front of it and put some random backgrounds behind it. Elder DeWaal and i took one in front of the abominable snowman from the rudolph movie. we havnt gotten it yet so i cant send it.

alright thats about it,

I love you!

Quinn