Week 80

6/27/16

Hi everyone, 

It was a really hot week, high 90's. apparently this week is supposed to be even hotter. Overall we had an interesting week. Most people we teach are out of town haha so that's been rough. We taught some people though and that went really well. We also stopped visiting some people we previously had been. They really just weren't interested in changing their lifestyle, so we decided to stop and find people who were. They basicaly said "I WANT to believe in God but I don't want to have to DO anything extra and actually do things , always sad to me. so yea . I went on exchanges with Elder Denton who served in Carson when I left the first time. He was pretty funny. I was in his area and he was like man its so hot, lets go get ice cream at McDonalds. We were walking right by it. So we went inside to get water and whatnot and this guy was like hey Elders I want to buy you lunch! that was pretty cool. Turns out the guy was actually my age haha. He's inactive but his brother is on a mission. 
We found this Guy named Alan and he seemed super into God when we met him like 2 weeks ago. We finally were able to go teach him again, turns out he's a member! He got baptized in Mexico when he was 10 and then when they moved up here his mom never took them to church. It was really cool though listening to him explaining how he thinks God talks to us (in our thoughts) and whatnot because well. thats normally exactly how it happens haha! 
Our spanish branch president got released and now we have a new one. That was a sad day, he is a good guy.  We will now have 1 less guy in the branch. Overall a good week though . 

-- 
Elder Quinton

pictures 6/27/16

Week 79

6/20/16

Hey happy late fathers day! :) 

 things are going well! For the most part overall things are good though. Sometimes it is rather difficult over here but for the most part things are good. 

funny moments of the week. Somehow a big wasp got into our basement where we live. no idea how. but we spent 20 minutes carefully trying to hit him. We made him very very angry hahaha. I finally did him in with a bottle full of bleach and then my comp smashed him. 

We had a recent convert come out with us to a lesson, she was late because she got pulled over by the cops. for going 30mph over the speed limit hahaha and then she had forgotten her license on top of that. So then she called her best friend to pick her up after the lesson and explained what happened. Her best friend laughed and her and said about time she got pulled over. Then about 10 minutes later she got a phone call from said best friend saying she had just gotten pulled over by a cop. Super funny. 

We had tried to visit this one person other missionaries referred us to but never had any success. Ever. and then so its been several weeks since we last tried but I was like we should go try that one lady. So we went in a time that she supposedly isnt normally home and a random creepy looking dude was outside her house. so My companion was like lets just try later and me being me figured well he deserves to here about Jesus too haha so we went out and turned out it was her husband and he was SUPER cool and interested. 

Over little things happened as well. 

-- 

Elder Quinton

Week 78

June 13,2016

Hi Eeryone,

Transfers have already come! I am staying In Elko again with Elder Shepherd! :)
We had a super great week. lots of success. Last monday we went hiking up "Lamiolle canyon", we will be going there again. Last time we were almost back to the car and we found some huge animal prints in the snow so that was pretty crazy. We are being careful though, we have a couple members with us that bring protection. We stopped visiting someone thats been visited for several years. His wife is a member but he just hasn't been progressing and whatnot so we told him our purpose is to invite others and we can't force them to do anything but if he is unwilling to do things than we would need to stop visiting him. Honestly probably the best lesson we've ever had with this guy! He is always yelling at his kids and he would cancel appointments when we got to his house etc. so it's been cool to see a small improvement .
We went to build a fence with someone we are teaching.
Funny story, I wasn't planning to let anyone know it was my birthday. However every month we get a little paper with new missionaries coming in, ones that are going home, birthdays, a short letter from our president, etc etc. andddddddddddddddd awkwardly enough they handed  out the thing a week before so all the missionaries knew about it. hahaha. I was trying to hide it, it didnt work though ;)
It was also a sister missionaries birthday on the same day too which was pretty funny.
Had a really good week though! :)

--
Elder Quinton

Week 77

June 6, 2016

WOOOO Happy early birthday Me! :) the big 24 haha. I only know 2 missionaries out here that are older than me. Of the.. 165 or so missonaries in my mission. Always makes me laugh. 

We had a pretty good week though. 

We gave a book of mormon to one of our investigators who is getting baptized in a month and he asked if he could have another because he gave it to someone. He's already read through it once and is halfway through again. 

Went on exchanges with Elder Smith (classic white person last name) but that went super well actually. We had some pretty funny stories that day. 

We got in kind of a water fight with some spanish members. They started it (it was about 8pm when we were about to leave) so then we of course had to get them back and then we won. nothing like having a hose/endless supply of water. Then when we left one snuck up behind me and I didn't see but my companion did and threw a huge amount of water all over my back. It was really cold. My companion asked if I wanted to go change shirts and I said nope. We went to contact someone we found in our records that was a referral from a member a couple years ago that no missonaries actually contacted. We pulled up and he was strapping his kid into the car so we got out real quick and started to talk to him ad he was like "this happened for a reason, I really needed to hear what you guys had to say and he wants us to come back in a couple days so that was awesome.

We had stake conference this past week. One of the members of the 70, Carlos Villarreal, wanted to meet with the spanish leadership and us and that went super good. He wanted to hear our ideas. 

I translated the stake conference so that was exhausting. 2 hours with no breaks aside from the 2 songs haha! that is tiring to do. The people were talking so quick too. Translating is tough in that type of setting. 

Things are going good though! This is the last week of the transfer. Who knows what will happen this next week!

--

Elder Quinton

H~A~P~P~Y B~I~R~T~H~D~A~Y CALEB!!
🎂🎉🎈💚💜

Week 76

5/30/16

Things are going really well! We've found a bunch of inactive members of the church that aren't in the records here and they all wanted to come back to church so that was pretty sweet. 

It has rained more here in Elko in the month I've been here than its rained in my entire mission. it has rained probably like 10 times or so. maybe more. with lots of thunder and whatnot its been crazy. 

We have several people set for baptism in the next month and a half. We've been having quite a lot of success. We've been trying to do a lot of finding though/street contacting. This is probably the hardest time I've had doing it though because we are trying to get an English and a Spanish area going. That's been real tough. doing one area can be difficult but doing two is not very easy. We've been doing our best though. That's all we can do haha. 

We had zone conference this past week! We had 3 zones meet together for the mission president to come address us and whatnot. Towards the end there was a missionary or two that stood up that I was companions with probably... 9-12 months ago that were having a hard time at the time but man. now they are just awesome. It was super cool to see how much they have changed. 

Our most progressing investigator came to a baptismal service and I translated it into spanish for him so that was fun. I really enjoy translating. 

We basically went on a wild goose chase to find a referral that other missionaries gave to us. They had talked to a lady that was super interested they said. She was Spanish (our Spanish area is probably about... 3 or so hours from one side to the other. maybe longer, we cover 2 stakes. and there is a lot of sand and sagebrush between hahaha). So we get to the exit 30 miles away. then the GPS says to turn off the highway and go on this sketchy dirt rode for another 35 miles so we do and its just sand. and sagebrush. and antelope. we couldn't find her ......haha. to be continued......

--

Elder Quinton