Week 11

Hello my favorite people! :) How is it going?

Things in Carson are going really well! Well there was a couple bumps and whatnot but things are going really well for the most part now. Last Monday we went hiking after we emailed and Elder White and I (my zone leader) we went up this rock face that was really steep and we climbed it and then we were told we went to the wrong part (the trail went to a different rock face, not the one we had just climbed). So we ran and beat them it was lots of fun though! 

I found out lots about my comp this past week. Reasons why we've been having lots of problems with things and whatnot. He is really struggling with his testimony and some other things which wasn't really news to me because I could tell. 

This past week he told me that he really hates when people tell him that he needs to help me with my Spanish more (he hasn't really been letting us do language study hardly ever. He will be like this counts as your language study and I disagree and tell him no but he thinks practice is the best thing for me and I think practice is good, but until I understand the rules it will only get me so far). This past week we actually had like 4 of our language study times though because I've been getting mad and making us do it. He was like I hate when people say I need to help you with your Spanish more because it makes me feel like the Lord is telling me that I'm not doing good enough and I'm Mexican I speak Spanish really well. Which is true he speaks very formal Spanish butttttttt that helps me not at all unless I can get time to study! and I'm just like.. DUH he is telling you to help me more! 

Funny story of the week soooooo. This 50 year old Latino lady I had never met before but my comp had. So she was talking to us and telling us about how she loves to party or whatever and then She looked at me and was like you are just so gorgeous just everything about you is just gorgeous, and I just turn bright red because well.. it was very embarrassing ha. And then at the end of the lesson I went for a hand shake and she hugged me!! I was like AAHHHHHH!!!!! it was. very very weird. 

Every Sunday and after district meetings my companion and my self and then the Spanish sisters eat with the Lopez family. They are great. The food is always delicious and I always have to take one for the team and eat a little extra.... ANYWAYS> So this past week she make something called.... papusos? or something like that. They are essentially pancakes with vegetables they are really good though! But anyways So i had eaten 3 and everyone else had eaten 1. and Sister Lopez was like who wants more? and I was like no i'm good i'm very full. and I turned around to get something and I hear Sister Pearson say "We all ate 2 already but I think Elder Quinton really wants another one" and I'm just like AHHH are you kidding?! it was pretty fun though the Spanish sisters are great. 

I had splits with the zone leaders this past week and that was awesomeeeeeee. I was able to express concerns I had with my companion. The next day actually my companion was mad and he called the zone leaders so we met with them and he told them why he was mad and they agreed with me and pretty much told him that he was wrong. So that was slightly amusing. But since that meeting things have been wayyyy better. We have had several super spiritual lessons since then. We used Thursday to organize our area  book which is basically just a record of all former, potential, and current investigators. It is very disorganized and I suggested we take Thursday to do that and he got very mad and then that next morning was when he called the zone leaders. But like I said since then things have been great! 

Other stories of the week a couple lessons fell through on the same day but we that was definitely inspired or something because we had a couple awesome experiences because of that. Such as.. I lifted a car up. This lady somehow had backed onto a median? so one of his back tires was of the ground. It wasn't in the middle of the road though luckily. So anyways my comp is trying to push it and I was just like okay now let me try because you know hes a lot smaller than I am. Soooo yea I lifted and pushed it (we put it in neutral) but lifting it was the hard part. 

I almost crashed on my bike this past week, we were driving and I saw something that I wanted to jump off of, it was just like a 1 ft drop and so I went for it and I jumped the bike as high as I could exceptttttttt.. it was more like a 3 ft drop and I got an additional foot of air so it was like 4ft. I was like crud! It was close. I learned my lesson though :-) 

A couple weeks ago I mentioned how my comp and I were in a lesson and someone knocked on the door looking for Mormon missionaries because he saw a car with a bike rack outside. He's a less active, he came to church with us yesterday though and I had a really good chat with me. He is 24 and went to Tennessee on his mission but hasn't gone to church in 8 months. He said the night that we met him he was so glad we were that. He got a little emotional and said that he has been having a really hard time with stuff in his life and that he was praying and just crying because he needed help and he got off his knees looked out the window and saw our car. So that was awesome. Hes a good kid I think the things I talked to him about really helped him he wants to come back to church which was awesome!

Theres more I could write buttttt time is short. love you all!

Elder Quinton

Week 10

Hows it going everyone?! I don't have a whole lot to say for this week suprisingly because its been a good week for the most part!

 I have been in Carson for 4 weeks now, kind of crazy! This past week we had Zone conference and stake conference! I was able to talk to my mission president for awhile because my companion was in a meeting with his wife. 

Our spanish sisters asked if I would be willing to sing a song with one of them in spanish for sacrament so that will be interesting haha. It sounded really good though, we only have sung it one time thus far. 

As for my companion and I things are going pretty well, sometimes we butt heads sometimes things are great. He has some issues though with stuff back home and whatnot so he's just been having a difficult time. This past week him and I had the most lessons though out of everyone! We had 34 lessons so that was pretty intense. 

I have about 3 pages left in my journal that I brought from home! In the 2.5 months i've been out I have written a full journal already so that is kind of exciting. 

Several of the people in our district have been pretty sick for days and so we have been going to the store to get things for a couple of them or running and dropping off notes to their investigators who they were supposed to have lessons with. I havent gotten sick though (crosses fingers!). My companion has been dizzy feeling for half the week though (I may take him to the doctors, I think he has an ear infection or something) and so i've been driving for the past couple of days. 

This past week we received an entire round cake from a member and.. well it was delicious. Lets just say I gave into the fatness for a day and ate half of it... hahahaha we also had pizza for dinner 4 TIMES this week. with 4 different members it was ridiculous. 

Funny story though the other day I woke up at about 2am and my companion started randomly giggling and I was like what are you laughing at dude? yea he was sleeping still. Then he started talking in his sleep and he was saying complete gibberish, it was great!

Not sure what else I have, enjoy!

Elder Quinton

Week 9

Happy Valentines! :) Well a couple days early.. but still. This week is going a lot better. My comp and I still butted heads a little but a LOT less. Last Monday after emailing, we went bowling with our zone leaders and some sisters in our district I got 5 strikes in one game... which those of you who know me know I am AWFUL at bowling it was hilarious though.

This Past week we found riding bikes is the absolute best way to find people in Carson. Last Tuesday and Wednesday we had 14 lessons between those two days and found several new investigators. Of course Thursday- today its been POURING down rain like crazy, everyone's excited though because there has been a pretty bad drought apparently. 

I forgot to write about it last week but most mornings we play soccer for almost an hour. and I hurt my foot last week (the arch where I broke several years back) and then the next day I got kicked really hard twice on the outside of my ankle. So my foot has had a pretty painful week. Its a little better now though, I am glad I brought my ankle braces with me. 

We had several funny experiences this past week. We were in the middle of a lesson and heard a knock on the door. The person at the door asked if the Mormon missionaries were there and keep in mind were at an apartment complex so they had to of knocked on several doors. The person was Mormon and had just moved to the area and saw a car with bikes and knew it was the elders. 

My companion and I have had several good conversations this past week, hes been having a difficult time with stuff, I think because his family isn't members and they never write to him etc. He also told me he has no friends his own age, he lived in Utah before his mission for a year (where he got baptized) and all his friends were in their 40's so he isn't sure how to act with someone his own age. He said he's never even had a best friend before or anything which made me think dang maybe I take the smallest things for granted.  I'm not sure what all it is but he's having a difficult time with stuff and we've talked a bunch and a couple times I felt impressed to say things a certain way and afterwards he was crying (I guess I bring tears to peoples eyes on occasion? ;) ). I think things will be better with him though. One thing that I really liked when we were talking about just random stuff was he asked me "Elder Quinton, how can you apply your life experiences, your job experience, etc to being a missionary?" I really liked that though because I hadn't thought about it before. 

To another cool experience, we had dinner with a family this past week and they are probably one of my favorite families, they are really cool and have a lot of common interests with me. I also found out the wife (Yanita) is a Princess from Indonesia. Shes from Yakarta, she left when she was 16 though shes I believe the youngest sibling in her family, but Her family is the Royal Family. They live in the palace, her parents or older sibling is the king/queen or something like that thought that was super cool. Her husband Erik is really into photography and cars and building things I had lots of fun talking to them. 

I got officially certified to drive as a missionary this past week BOOYAH! haha. 

We met an 88 year old named Albert, superrrrrr cool guy he is really knowledgeable. We talked to him for about an hour and his wife got home and the first thing she asks is "WAIT WAIT! has he showed you his naked picture yet?!" and we were like... what? she pulls us over to the wall and he was apparently a famous gymnast like 60 years ago. and He was indeed very naked in the pictures (you couldn't see anything.. but.. yea. hahaha it was really funny). 

I got a call Saturday afternoon and The guy asked if I could teach Elder Quorum on Sunday and I was like as in tomorrow Sunday? and he was like yea and I was like ummm yea I can do that. Then he was like ,"oh its in Spanish too". So that was lovely, and then he apologized for the late notice and said he was busy this week. So I had about an hour to prepare a 45 minute Spanish lesson even though we didn't even have the lesson manual. It actually went really well though. 

Before we play soccer every morning, we do a little 10 minute work out and do random things and one of the work outs said "wall push ups" and I took that literally so myself and one of the zone leaders did hand stands and did push ups, I had no idea I could even do those butttttttt I did about 20? so that was kind of cool, difficult though. My next challenge will be to learn how to do it without the wall. 

You know how in Jesus' time they drank wine and whatnot? well I was wondering why because you know, Jesus knows everything and whatnot. So I asked a couple people and tried to research with what little personal time I have. So. Back then there was a lot of diseases and bad stuff in the water apparently and they used wine to kill the stuff in the water? It was watered down wine or something like that thought it was interesting though.

A kid named Angel, I'm pretty sure I've written about him before, he is the one that had nightmares that started praying and keeping the scrips close to him like I asked him to, I asked how it was going and he said he isn't having nightmares anymore WOOOOO! I was happy. 

I never noticed it before but Carson city is super clean, I have yet to see graffiti on something and I never seen trash in parking lots. Its kind of cool everyone for the most part is really nice. for the most part.. haha. That's all folks, enjoy yourselves! and may the odds be ever in your favor! ;)

Elder Quinton

My Companion

 

Bowling!! 5 strikes!

Week 8

Hows it going everyone? 

This week has been a little rough. Things are going alright though, my companion and I are.. I don't know, its hard to explain sometimes things are great sometimes they aren't essentially. It's been making it increasingly difficult. 

I wish that we did more service, I keep wanting to find like a homeless shelter and volunteer there once a week (were allowed 4 hours of community service every week), but my companion doesn't want to, which is frustrating, because people will learn to trust you more if you serve them, etc. 

In the two weeks I've been here, we finally did a language study... were supposed to every morning for 30 minutes to an hour. I'm not exactly sure how he expects me to learn the language if I dont get time to study it though. Sometimes I feel like we waste a lot of time that we should be doing more productive things, like for example the other day he wanted to take an entire HOUR for lunch and he just wanted to relax and stuff and it just is getting super frustrating. 

Since he's the district leader he had 14 hour training in Sparks, and he had to go to that so I went on splits with an elder in Tahoe (California part of the mission) and it's super pretty over there. I took a bunch of pictures. Hopefully I can send some, I'm on a library computer today so i'm not really sure.

The Elder I went on splits with was pretty cool though, howeverrrrrr I'm glad were not companions because, they were very not productive days. I was only with him for a day thankfully, I mean I think maybe because his companion was the senior companion and was at the training too that he kind of just wanted to do a mini vacation or something. I was glad my companion isn't like that at least. He woke up at 6:30 though like were supposed to and then went out and layed on the couch and was like the rule book just says you have to get out of bed it doesn't say you can't go back to sleep. and He slept (tried to), I was trying to talk to him some till 8. It was a good experience that made me appreciate my companion a little more though. We did teach 2 lessons that day though. and then we tried to do a 3rd but the guy is apparently pretty suicidal and we called and went to his house and he didn't answer and the card they had put in his door was there from 4 days previous in the exact same spot. I'm not sure what actually happened yet because we didn't find out but yea... kind of crazy. Super sad too. The same Elder in Tahoe, his companion and him hit a bear about a month ago.

Back to Carson City though, I have met a couple people who are from the Seattle Area. One of them I am friends with people that they are friends with which was pretty funny. The Robinson family, they moved 2 years ago. The dad apparently worked at Microsoft in Redmond too. They have several kids my age (I know their friends) but they are both serving missions right now. Kind of cool though!

There are always funny stories! Since I'm helping him with his English its been really funny, the other day I was like why do you have so much junk? and he looked at me all confused and was like Que es junk? (what is junk) I died of laughter. 

Second Funny story, at the training that my companion went to, he saw one of his other Elder friends and he was like "Hey elder ArellanoI I hear you got called to be the president of the relief society in Carson!" and Elder Arellano didn't get the joke until he told me two days later and I'm just laughing really hard. OH. the joke is because my companion is the district leader of a district comprised of all girls. 4 girl championships. I think you'd have to be Mormon to get the joke, it was pretty funny though. 

We met a lady named lilly last week and when we met her, she had gotten out of jail that day and she was only in for a couple of days but she was praying to god that she would change her ways and not 20 minutes after she got home we showed up. She was like This is a sign from god. Not only that but we were there to visit her dad actually and we had had his name for 3 months(thats what my comp said) and we had randomly chosen that day to meet him. 

We teach a boy named angel several times a week last week he expressed some fears he's had and nightmares and I gave him suggestions and this past week i followed up and asked him how it was going and he said that he puts his BOM next to him every night while he sleeps (I didn't suggest that) but it was really cool to see his willingness. 

In the Book Jesus the Christ, it says Jesus only taught the last 3 years of his life. It also said that Jesus walked 40 miles to where John the Baptist was so that he could have the proper authority of baptism. Thought both of those interesting!

We had several Spanish members cancel on going with us to Spanish lessons which sucked and so I was thinking about what we could do and we both said we should go walking. Then I asked him where was a place that he had no success with street contacting and he told me and I was like okay lets go there. We went there. and BOOM. met several people. One was an 85 year old man who is almost all the way blind, German man. Reminded me a lot of Pa, h'es a catholic and we talked about his life and when we left we said a prayer, when I opened my eyes he was crying and thought that was cool. 

I am doing good, love you all! 

Elder Quinton

Pictures from Tahoe