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

Week 7

How's it going everyone?! :)

I am in Carson City, Nevada right now. For those who would like my address my family has it and I believe that it is on my facebook as well.

Its' nice being in the states. I am also glad to use an American keyboard again. makes typing a whole lot easier lol. Mission president is cool yes as for spiritual stuff there's always stories lol. Also i cant use facebook. Well with this president at least. When we get a new one in 6 months maybe i will be able to I'm not sure though.

It was funny I told mom but I got off the plane in Phoenix and this black dude said hi to me and I was like hola hermano and kept walking and then I realized wait a second did I seriously just say that? hahahahaha I said hi brother. And it was like wow I've been around lots of Spanish lol

In the airport while we waited we had about 30 peoples who were LDS come up to us and thank us for our service and try to buy us lunch and that type of thing it was awesome! That's the type of person i want to be. It just made me feel like a really special person. I met this family names the Notars, The wife has been a member for years the husband doesn't want to be a member but he has known mormons for like 30 years and always had them in his life. A missionary gave him a Book of Mormon 15 years ago and he always tells missionaries that he won't read it and its not for him. Hes a SUPER knowledgeable man though. He's in law enforcement BUT, I've never met someone in law enforcement with his attitude. When he sees bad people he thinks about how christ can help their lives, etc etc. He is literally a mormon minus the water (baptism, get it :p). So we were talking to him and mentioned the BOM and how You dont have to be a mormon to read it. And he got a tear in his eye and said that he will read the book of mormon and that he hadnt felt the spirit like that it was so cool. We had a member with us. Having a member with you at lessons is super important, it helps a lot.

 My companion is Elder Arellano, he is a native speaker, which is a score for me because I wanted a native speaker, he's a funny guy. He only started speaking English when he came out on his mission, he's been out for 3 transfers now (about 5 months). He was made a district leader and a trainer at the same time. His English is actually really good though. He's 24! Which made me happy that I'm with someone older than me as well lol. The funny thing is our district is comprised of him and I, and then 4 companionships... of sisters... but they are pretty cool.  I've only met 2 sets of them so far though. 

Every morning we wake up at 6 and go play sports with 3 other companionships which is fun! But, I also really miss going to the gym and lifting weights. Oh well though. I am helping Elder Arellano with his English and he is helping me with my Spanish. I keep teaching him slang words and its really amusing to hear him use the slang words. There should be pictures of us and me with my mission president up on my missions blog pretty soon, they weren't there when I just looked but the link to that is    http://nevadarenomission.blogspot.com/

I had an awesome first week though! My day was made on day two because okay so. Every 2 transfers we get 3 new sister missionaries from Salt Lake Temple Square sisters who are serving there but they come here to get an actual normal mission experience. One of them was one of my friends! I used to hang out with her at college at BYUI and I met her at E.F.Y. like 7 years ago. Sister Kylie Ennis. So that was a really cool "small world experience"

My companion and I cover a huge area we cover 2 wards, the Carson River ward (and spanish group) and then the Lone Mountain ward. We have a car though luckily. 

In my mission presidents office he has the acronym C.T.R. written I laughed when I got closer and read the words after each letter

C.ome

T.o

R.eno

Gave me a good laugh. 

We have taught about 25 lessons in the 5 days that I've been here. Some Spanish some English. The Spanish is coming alright we don't really do language study right now though. During the day he just asks me things in Spanish and makes me use my brain to think in Spanish which is a good thing. 

We went to a guy's house the other day and it was in the middle of nowhere but his house was.. really ghetto but super interesting and cool looking, I want to try and get a picture of it. It consisted of 4 motor homes stuck together, and in between he build a ply wood flooring, and he connected it all with ply wood. He also has about 100 chickens, it was crazy. Hes a mechanic as well so of course there were broken down cars everywhere. 

Funny story of the week we were eating at a members house and I asked if my comp. wanted more jalapenos because he had just gotten more mexican food and he was like yes of course! So I started passing them to him and he was just about to get it and I was like HAHA despues de me! (after me) everyone died. The story won't be as funny to you guys probably but I laughed. 

We have had a lot of good lessons though. Already seeing miracles. P day is on Mondays for me. I can't think of what else to say though. I am sure there is plenty more that I could write. After i'm done emailing, we are going to go to some waterfall. The weather's been about 15-20 degrees in the morning but normally gets up to 50 degrees.

We were talking to this one family whose investigating the church, their son Angel is a really smart kid and he asked about fears and how he can't sleep much and I felt like I should show him my favorite scripture (Isaiah 41:10) and then I bore my testimony and told him God and Jesus Christ can help us with any of our problems, all we have to do is ask (he hadn't been praying).

So in the scriptures it talks about the Liahona and how it has spindles and when they were choosing the right it would point the right direction. It very clearly says spindles though. Plural. so in my opinion... in order to point the correct way, they would have to overlap. Yea? Just like a watch when both the hands are on the 3.

We watched a short portion of a broadcast for mission presidents from Utchdorf. He said "Fear No Man. When people know and feel your love you can never be too bold. Overbearance is being bold without love.

My favorite scripture is Isaiah 41:10. In my opinion one of the most powerful scriptures in the bible. It just gives you a huge sense of comfort I think. You'll recognize the passage because its the final verse of how firm a foundation

Its been cool to find people who are friends with mormons or have been taught by missionaries before, clearly they have been prepared so that's been cool.

 Love you all!

-Elder Quinton

(My District pictures below)

New Address

New Mailing address for Cabe:

Caleb is finally back in the states! His new comp is a native speaker so he's thrilled about that. He was also able to check in with family while waiting at the airport. He sounded great amd was very excited to have a meal that didn't have beans in it (as he was tired of them.) We look forward to his first P-day so we can get a full update!

Elder Caleb Quinton
1177 Denise Cir
Carson City, NV  89701-5397

Week 6

I leave for Reno in t-minus 12 hours! WOOOOO haha.

It's been a great week, I discovered the MTC president here we were the last group he finished with, he is leaving tomorrow as well so that's kind of cool.

It's been interesting being the older district here. It will suck leaving all my new friends but eh.

I forgot several things to write about last week about our previous zone leader Elder Martin, this guy is so funny. So when we were saying our good byes, he gives me a hug and whispers in my ear "hail Hydra" with a straight face, referencing of course the Captain America movie it was funny.

Working out with Elder Craner again and it was funny he went on a jog around the building and came back in and was like did you know there was a bike rack over there? And I was like yea why? He totally tripped over it it was pretty funny. It is pitch black out when we work out.

It's been funny. I don't feel like I have a whole lot to say actually. I have a lot I could say but I don't know lol. I am doing good. There have been lots of funny stories but I don't think that everyone would want to read them so you can ask me personally if you'd like. I can't believe how quickly time is going!

This past Sunday I had to give another talk and I killed it. I was the last person to speak. The Spanish is still coming good. I hope that my trainer is a native or something though that would be legit. I don't have pics to email right now because I need to get them from some of my friends but next week I should send several. 

My old zone leader was telling us about how he drowned when he was 10 and he's super chill and funny and his companion was like "well that's a shame.. that you SURVIVED!" It was funny.  

The other day I had a water fight with a guy. He was in the stall and I started getting balls of paper towels from the trash, soaking them in water and throwing them at him it was funny. We cleaned it up of course but it was funny it was like 10 minutes long. 

I was talking to my teacher about movies in Spanish and we were talking about the dark knight and the voice acting and how I want to try and watch them in Spanish when I get home to see how different the acting is. And he said the batman movies from the 80's they changed Bruce Wayne's Name to BRUNO DIAZ HAHAHAHAHA. He said they change names a lot in Spanish. 

Another story so my friend Tomasi, he's a Tongan elder, he was in my zone but left last week but, we started doing this thing where we would fake shoot him with our hands and he would start doing that dance move called "the Bernie" so... he was sitting on the stand before devotional to give the prayer and it was before we started the meeting but like five of us shot him and he started doing it while he was sitting and President Pratt was right by him it was great. There's tons of more stories but time is short!

You guys are awesome!

Week 5

Hello All! 

To those who asked, yes I am definitely feeling better thankfully. It sucked being sick. I Leave from Mexico to Reno where my mission actually is in just a couple days! :) Which is super crazy. I think I may not get to email next week though since I arrive the day after Pday is in my mission. Who knows though, I very well may be able to email real quick or call to let you guys know i made it safely. 

Worst case scenario you guys hear from me in a week and a half so no biggy. I heard that supposedly I get to email on either Saturday Sunday or Monday though before i leave. 

So last week, like i said right after i emailed i went off to cut my hair and my companions. Mine was super easy, my companion wanted some really weird stuff done to his hair and i warned him in advance that i had only ever cut my own hair before. He wanted me to only use the buzzer one the sides and back and then use the scissors for everything else. I did really good actually until the very very front. Suffice to say i buzzed the rest of his hair too hehe :) He got over it very quickly though. 

There's been several thunder and rain storms this past week which has been awesomeeeee reminded me of home. Except the rain smelt a lot different than Washington rain but oh well such is life. 

This past week my companion and i taught a lady who has been a member for only 2 months, she's a volunteer and she volunteers to get taught every week. It was probably the first time i really felt like a missionary actually, she had tons of questions for us and she kept writing down notes about what we said in her little Book of Mormon. I did most of the talking because my companion.. well.. he can speak church Spanish alright but he doesn't know like anything that the lady was saying and well. My Spanish is pretty good so yea. As for things with my companion, he's being a little bit better. I don't know though, sometimes he will randomly just take everything super personally and be mad at everyone. 

8 Guys that were in my zone left on Monday early, that was pretty sad they are a ton of awesome guys. They are headed to McAllen Texas which happens to be where one of my friends is serving! so that was kind of cool when i realized that. 

I am still going to the gym 6 days a week with my roommate elder Craner at 5:30. on Saturday we went and there was 2 girls there which was weird because we've never seen ANYONE there when we are there so that was strange. Right as we left at 6:20, 6 guys walked in. Fast forward to Monday, we went at the normal time at 5:30 and.. the girls weren't there.. BUT. guess who showed up 10 minutes after us? the guys from Saturday. 45 minutes before they were there Saturday and not only that, they brought about 15 other guys with them. and then today same thing a ton of guys came Hahahaha I had a good laugh at that. They came earlier to see if the sister missionaries were working out again. Ridiculous. It is annoying though because then I have to wait for people that don't know what they are doing to finish on machines or with certain weights. 

I wanted to join the mens mtc choir here but no one in my district that's a guy likes to sing so i couldn't join. On Monday we took our farewell pictures!

On Monday during our daily gym time we always play volleyball because that's all my companion ever wants to do. And I noticed 2 Mexican guys trying to pull out some trees out of the ground, and they were having a lot of trouble. The trees weren't too thick, only like 4 inches wide or so. And i asked if they wanted help and then I helped them pull it out, and then they asked if I would help them with like 5 more trees. it was kind of entertaining actually. There are a couple missionaries I met that are going to my home mission Everett WA!

I traded a couple ties of mine last night actually that i never wore. I got some sweet ones though in return.

I leave in 5 days for Reno! :) As for the spiritual stuff I have spiritual experiences all the time. I cant help but just be amazed at some of the things I've thought about. Like as for Christ's ministry, how could people doubt when he healed people and raised them from the dead? how could you possibly ever doubt that? I have been really interested in reading joseph smiths journals. Any time we watch joseph smith videos... man. I cant even comprehend what that must of been like. Whenever it gets to the part when he is in Carthage jail and with Hyrum it just is a really powerful feeling. I think i already told you guys when we were standing in the temple visitors center watching the video on families and it was talking about grandparents and i got the most overwhelming feeling that pa was standing behind me with his hand resting on my shoulder. That was... crazy. It was so weird because I never knew him that well. But i just started crying and i couldn't help it. It was crazy.

 

I'm trying to think of some of the things. There's been a ton. Most have been just like little feelings or something. We were talking about the tree of life one time and i had a random thought that i really liked though. So in that story everything is symbolic right? I have never heard of anyone relating Lehi to anything but.. Lehi is like Jesus Christ or the Prophet. Beckoning for people to come take hold of the iron rod and partake of the love of god. 

I have learned a lot of interesting things that I didn't know before. Such as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Did you know that the fruit literally made the health of adam and eve degenerate? and that they were cast out of the garden because if they partook of the other fruit of the garden, it would made their health get better and then they would have to die in their sins. That's why they were cast out of the garden. Thought that was really interesting because I've never heard of that before. 

A couple other things i can think of off the top of my head. Our teacher hermano cruz who is awesome. he shared with us a scripture that indirectly talks about the heavenly mother and we talked about it for like 30 minutes. He said not to share it with anyone other than close family though. Its hard to explain over email. 

Another just thing that i thought was cool too. So the phrase endure to the end. I hate that phrase because when i think of the word endure i think of... well i cant think of how to explain it but the dictionary meaning is to hold out against. In Spanish the phrase endure to the end is perseverar hasta el fin. To persevere until the end. I like the word persevere better. It just has a stronger meaning i think. I don't want to just endure my trials and challenges I want to conquer and persevere over them. you know? I'm sure there are more things I could say though. I have extra time today because i may of typed my general email out the other day :p hence why I was able to go huge email on you. There's a lot of funny stories that happen.

 

Week 4

Hey guys!

This week has been kind of crazy I got food poisoning for 2 days which was you know, lovely. I felt like a two headed dragon it was disgusting. Not to paint a vivid image in your mind or anything :-) after I thought I was feeling better I wanted to brave dinner but I passed out (literally) in the bathroom and then I managed to open the door in time for me to pass out again it was all kinds of fun! I am very fortunate though because hours after I felt better, the water in the entire campus and part of the city got shut off because some idiot hit the main water line hahahahahaha! so that would of been a very uncomfortable experience had that happened while I was sick. 

Its been kind of annoying, because of all the Spanish I'm being exposed to down here, I am having trouble spelling in English which annoys me because I'm a grammar freak! Ah missionary problems. It is kind of funny though when I am speaking in English and finish the thought in spanish. Sometimes its difficult to remember which language I am trying to speak. 

My roommates Elder Craner and Elder Short (short is going to Reno) are hilarious. We always have a lot of fun with them. I work out with Elder Craner at 5:30 every morning besides Sunday. 

So many funny things happened this past week. Elder Brander, I forgot to mention previously, he is my district leader, he looks like a short version of Channing Tatum. He is a super funny guy.

 I woke up one morning to find a MASSIVE spider in my shower, it was about 4 inches wide. I was in the bathroom about to get in the shower andddddddd it moved right next to my foot. I jumped about a mile in the air.

Myself and another elder in my district were asked to help one of the sisters in our district with her Spanish during our personal language study because she's having a lot of trouble. 

After teaching one of our "investigators" this past week, who is our teacher, He told my companion and I that we have the best prepared lessons by far out of everyone and that we are both really good teachers and we switch off talking perfectly, we knuckle bumped and then after we left we busted up laughing because that lesson we literally prepared in about a minute because we have been really busy lately. It was quite the compliment though I felt pretty awesome. 

Yesterday I played Cage soccer for the first time since I've been here. My companion never wants to but I convinced a guy in my district to go on splits and play with me. There are always tons of people playing but yesterday there weren't a whole ton. Only about 20. There's 6 people per team and once someone scores one point the losers get off the field. My team played against some of the locals and we killed it, we won 6 games in a row and then we went on another winning streak. Elder Laws (the guy I went on splits with) was sold on playing he scored several goals and he wants to play for most of today as well. I am going to chop my hair off today wooooo! That's what I am going to do right after I get off emailing.

I met several elders going to our home mission (Everett WA)! They asked if I could give them some contacts but I haven't because I didn't know who to. 

Well I am done for the week but I have been out for 4 weeks!

Don't have too much fun without me :)