Week 24

Sorry for the late email today! I've got to keep it pretty short today. We were at D.C. for most of the day! Our mission president decided that since we were being so good we get to go visit D.C. every single transfer now (if we desire), instead of it being every 3 months.

Lately we've  been having a ton of really cool experiences happen on facebook of all places. I've been teaching someone in Ghana and sister Wilcox has been teaching someone in Nigeria. Although...just as with anything, you always find a couple of weirdos. I started talking to a man that thought he was a prophet and that he needed to talk to the LDS church because he thought that we could get him to Jerusalem so that he could prophecy to people and whatnot. hmm...

We had exchanges with our sister Training Leaders this past Tuesday. There was a pretty big storm that was happening, but at one part we got out of our appointment and we were driving along right before it got dark and the sky all of the sudden got really light, and turned a bright orangey, golden color. It reflected off of the street and the whole ground looked like it was paved in gold! It was pretty neat!

We have an investigator getting baptized this Saturday! Also, I'm singing in church this coming sunday just for funsies. So that'll be interesting.

The other day we also ding dong ditched some cookies at one of the other sister missionaries apartments. They were thoroughly creeped out that someone had come to their apartment, banged on the door and left.

Something really funny happened the other day in relief society. We had a new family move in and one of them just graduated from high school and so she was filling out the "get to know you form" and I saw her birthdate and when I saw the year I realized that Im getting old;) hahahah

It's really cool how much we are taken care of by the Lord. Man I especially recognize how much we are taken care of when Im a missionary. The other day I decided that I will need a gps in the next few months since im transferring areas and then training, so I called up my Ward Mission Leader and asked if he knew of anyone in the ward that would be willing to let me buy a GPS off of them and all he said was, "Hmm..actually I have one that you can just have! Let me go find it!" So he gave me a GPS for free. CRAZY!! I was really grateful though!

buuuuuut that's about all of the fun stuff that I have time to talk about!! love you all!!:)

Week 23

hey! this week has been pretty interesting. There wasn't too much that went on!

 

But First off....I had the opportunity of touching a chinchilla. They're very soft and fuzzy.

 

We got to help paint a nonmembers house and the 18 year old girl started asking all sorts of questions about the church. She asked us about swearing and then after we gave her an answer she said, "hmm...well since you don't swear, that probably means you don't drink either, right?" We're hoping to start teaching her soon!:)

 

Our investigator Chris Maeger just had his baptismal interview and he is all set and ready to get baptized!

 

On the Fourth of July we did some fun things! We were able to stay out an hour and a half later than we usually get to, and after we ate dinner we didn't need to go out proselyting, so we went to hang out with Mary Eargle, a less active youth in a different ward. We made crepes, and went hiking! It was a lot of fun. We only got to see little baby fireworks.

 

Well.. That's about all that happened for the week!! Love you all!:)

 

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(Adding in more letter that Kali sent to Kara)

 

You're the Young Women's Secretary! I always loved hearing you teach. I was able to feel the spirit really strongly, more so than when other people were teaching. You always were able to relate to people really easily. Youre definitely going to knock their socks off! lol

 

so funny story...the other day I was doing something, I don't even know what it was and I reminded myself of you. lol and I have a picture from your wedding where its got all the kids and we're making funny faces and stuff and I showed that picture in a lesson I taught in the gospel principles class and everyone was like "whoooaaa!! You look so much like your sisters!!!" it was pretty funny. I really enjoy looking like you all and being so close with you!

 

My fourth of july was pretty fun!!! Sometimes I would be doing something then I'd stop and be like, "Well its my sisters birthday...soooo I've got to celebrate with her! and therefore....I should probably eat this ice cream..." haha :) It's so weird being halfways across the world and having it be someone birthday and not being able to say "Happy Birthday" on their actual birthday. But hey at least I get to celebrate your birthday down here! lol

 

It's so weird to think that I only have a year left!! In three months ill be half way! weeeeeird!! Each transfer flies by so fast, and so by the time 2 transfers are done, another 3 months are gone, it's a really odd sensation haha

 

Cutting up Fruit to Freeze since everything molds so fast here

Fourth of July

Reverse planking (for Dad.) For reference, I have included why below.

 

 

Drinking Coconut Juice

Mary Rose Eargle and I on 4th of July. (Apparently.. I'm really short in this picture)

Our Coconut.

(Missionaries and their Machetes)

(Let us teach you the Gospel, they said. It'll be fun, they said.) :)

Superman cracks the coconut

Fourth of July

 

Week 22

The other day during studies, my companion and I were able to piece something together. Last week I mentioned that I could recognize different feelings in homes, and I've come to realize exactly what The difference in the homes is, it's CONSISTENCE. Consistent scripture study, consistent prayer and consistent family home evening. THAT is what the difference is. We decided to research the reasons why this could be. And as we were doing so, it made us even more so realize the importance of our calling. Lately with the church, there has been a huge push for getting members and missionaries working together, and we understood that that was important, but we finally were able to realize the true magnitude of what we are doing.

In the scriptures it tells us to put on the armor of God. We need to put on the armor of God because without it we will not be prepared for the second coming. We will have no protection against Satan. A missionary's job is literally to prepare the ward members for the second coming...but how does that work? Well...repentance.

So what is the true meaning of repentance? Repentance is change. Any time that we are learning and growing, we are repenting, or we are changing. Repentance doesn't have to be some huge thing where we get down on our knees and beg for forgiveness. We are asked to repent daily. So how do we do that? We study the word of God. Every time that we open our scriptures and pray and go to church, we are changing; changing to becoming more like Christ.

So how does that tie in to members and missionaries working together? So many ward members are not doing all of the basic things (scripture study, prayer, etc.)  that they should be. There are a lot of members who never read their Book of Mormon. Who never have sat down and willingly opened the book themselves. Sad, right? Well that's where the missionaries come in. A missionaries job is to "invite others to come unto Christ", and the way we do that is by calling them to repentance; or by inviting them to change. The only way they can truly do that is by doing the basic things that we are taught from a young age.

As members are doing these simple steps, they then qualify for the ongoing companionship of the Holy Ghost. Which when felt, helps us to remember what it felt like to be in God's presence. It helps us remember what we have the potential to become.

Personal and family scripture study is SO important. It definitely makes me grateful that we did all of these things when we were growing up! :)

So that is the main cool spiritual experience that I had this week!

This week we also he the opportunities to have interviews with our mission president. The first thing that he said to me is, "well sister quinton, we need to get you out of the area! Your companions have
spoken highly of you. I think at the end of this transfer you'll be moving to a new area and well...I think you're ready to train! Although..once you move to the new area I'll give you one or two transfers to get to know the area before I give you a trainee so that you're not completely white-washed!". So apparently I'll be training soon! That'll definitely be an adventure.

This week we had an interesting experience. We were on the way to see an investigator, but ended up not going because their next door neighbor was in the process of moving in. I knew the previous owners and lets just say that previously the house was not the kind of house anyone would've willingly chose to live in. There was piles and piles of stuff all over the house, there was barely any room to walk. They had kept black garbage bags over the windows so it was always very dim
inside. One of the rooms was their, "smoking" room, and that wasn't all of the stuff that happened in that room. Different sorts of drugs were there and in the hallway outside the door there were stains of
the drugs that had literally leaked and oozed from behind the closed door. Gross right? And that's not all, the floors, walls, bathrooms and all other rooms has a layer of dirt and dust that was caked
everywhere.

Well...you could say that the new owner definitely had a LOT of work to do in order to clean the house and be able to move in, in a week and a half. By the time we met her they had been cleaning for a week, and were still no where close to finished.

Our phone was baptized this week and now is not working at all.. ha ha

 

So funny story...last night my comp and I were teaching a 15 year old less active and then she decided that she wanted to come out with us to teach people. We went to see if one of our investigators was home...she wasn't. So then I thought, "hmm...we should go to the foreman's house!" lo and behold...we get there and sister foreman says, "oh hey, I'm on the phone with your mother right now!" talk about perfect timing! lol

 

also, funny story about "may the force be with you" so when one of our investigators was getting baptized, she set the date for may 3rd, and so I said, "well hey! At least you're getting baptized then, because on may 4th I can walk up to you and say 'may the forth be with you'!" she just stopped for a second....and then she started laughing. Hahaha it works perfect! Everyone should be baptized on may 3rd lol

 Buuuuut anywho.....that's about everything that happened this week!! Love you all! :)

 

super random...I don't know if I told you...but the coat that Leedle and Kiwi got for me for Christmas was seriously the best thing EVER. literally haha I used it every single day during up until like a month and a half ago. so THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!:)

Week 21

Hey everyone! This week has been wonderful! Sister Wilcox and I are still having a ton of fun together!

We had an interesting experience this week. This past Saturday we had the opportunity to help decorate/clean up after 2 birthday parties. It wasn't until after the parties that I realized something. I love both families dearly, but homes where people are keeping their covenants and reading scriptures/ praying/having family home evening, feel completely different from the ones that aren't doing that. I hadn't recognized before that that was a lot of the difference. In the first home I walked in and immediately felt safe and comfortable and I could relax. The room felt like some kids had just played really hard, had a wonderful time and left completely satisfied. The decorations were simple and inexpensive.

 The second home was starkly different. A lot of time had been spent on putting decorations around the house so that the everything looked perfect, almost as if the room was taken straight from a magazine. Perfectly spotless, perfectly organized....perfectly....perfect. It was almost superficial. The house felt stressed, I felt on guard and my spirit recognized that something was off.

My brain hadn't realized any of this until after the fact, even though my spirit had unconsciously been recognizing it. And now that I'm aware of it, it makes me even more grateful for the priesthood and for growing up in a home that strived to do their best with scripture study, and prayers and family home evening.

 

We had another interesting experience this week. We were eating dinner at a ward members home and she was telling us about how she had been in a religion class once and the teacher had started talking about self esteem and how a lot of people nowadays do not have a good self esteem. It's because they base it off of things that they do not have control over. For example, they say that they have high self esteem because they are pretty. But...that isn't something that someone really has control over. If we focus our self esteem on things that we DO have control over, then we will be so much happier. The teacher suggested things such as, "I have a high self esteem because I keep the commandments" or "I have a high self esteem because I go to church every Sunday". I just thought it was a really cool way of describing self esteem and it makes sense when you look out at the world today and you realize that not many people are happy and its because they're focusing way too much on the material things.

 

Something kind of funny happened this week as well... we were out talking to a woman outside her house and we saw her teenage daughter through the window. Apparently the daughter thought that it was hilarious that we were talking to her mom because she started taking "selfies" with us in the background lol I thought that was pretty funny.

 

Well...thaaaat is about it!! Have a wonderful upcoming week!!! love you all! :)

 

 

Week 20

Hey everyone! What a crazy week! We had transfers this week! I'm still in the same area, but I now have a new companion! Her name is sister Wilcox, she from Orem, Utah and she been out a little bit over a year! She's wonderful! We're definitely going to be great friends.

We had several really awesome experiences this week. First off, we have an investigator named Raymond. He's been investigating the church off and on for about five or six years. He is a spiritual giant. He feels like he doesn't know enough and yet....he's the type of person that spends at least two hours studying the bible every morning. When he reads the Book of Mormon he looks at EVERY single cross reference in order to better understand it. How he isn't already baptized, I have no idea. So...he's only come to church a couple of times in the past couple of years, BUT he came to church on Father's Day!! It was so amazing. Sister Wilcox and I were at church about a half hour early, and when we walked in, he was already sitting out in the foyer, just waiting for church to start.

Another cool experience, Greg weber, another of our investigators is married to a woman in our church, she is recently reactivating in church and so Greg has been taking the lessons. From my perspective, he feels a little bit pressured so he isn't making the effort to read or pray or anything. I'm thinking that as soon as he doesn't feel pressured, then he will make the decision on his own to start reading and praying and stuff. BUT it's cool because he's slowly, unconsciously making changes that I don't think he has realized yet. Sister weber told us that At the table during dinner he's been the one

whose said, "ok, so who wants to say the prayer?". And during church yesterday, when the sacrament was about to start he reached over to his son and closed his coloring book and said, "wait till after the

prayer". I don't even think Greg is aware of what he is doing! He's slowly making little baby steps into changing his life around. It's been really amazing to see.

3rd cool experience: the  other night we were walking back to our car, we had 10 minutes to be home and I saw a couple of youngish kids on the side of the road with a ball. They were about 11 years old, and I just wanted to get home, but I knew that it was my duty to go over and talk to them, so I did and one of the girls paused for a second and then said, "so what's the difference between Mormons and other religions anyway?" SCORE. That is the best question ever. And we set up a time to come see them all again!

4th cool experience: we had set up a different appointment to see a 14 year old. So we ride up to this persons house (his name is Caleb haha) and we knocked on his door and Caleb's dad, Ron, answers the door. "Umm, Caleb is sleeping, what do you need?"

"Well, we're missionaries and we had set up a time to come and see him!" Ron then started talking to us and was so open and willing to listen said we could come back into his home soon to teach him and his son more.

Well! I think that's about all of the interesting news for the week!

Love you all!

Week 19

Hey everyone! :)

This week has been super fun! This week is also transfers...if sister Richardson and I make it another transfer it would be a miracle. So this week I could very well have a new companion.

We had the opportunity to teach activity days this week. There were about 20 girls and they were all so fun! They ran up and gave us a big group hug at the end. It was so much fun!

This week we started teaching an Ethiopian family. On our very first lesson with them they had some questions about why we needed the Book of Mormon and why we needed prophets. It was cool because as soon as we explained what they were and why we needed them, they both said, "ok!" And that was the end of it!

Another cool thing happened. We were walking along a neighborhood and we saw a black man and woman coasting down the street on a four wheeler and the woman was putting her arms in the air and yelling for

joy. We walked up and talked to them and the woman was so impressed that young people were out dedicating a portion of their life to talking to people about God. We set up a time to come back and share a

spiritual thought with her. At our appointment we taught the restoration of the gospel and we would ask her questions about how she came to know that there was God. As she was talking about her experiences I could feel the Holy Ghost really strongly. After we had finished the lesson she committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.

2nd cool thing: our investigator Gus is on date for baptism soon. Today we drove by his house on the way to another persons house and we saw Gus outside. We decided to stop and see how he was doing. (Gus is

rarely ever home at all, let alone home and outside his house right at the time that we drive by. Definitely not a coincidence). We gave him a paper that had all of the rest of the things that he needed to do before his baptism. He seems excited although he said that it hasn't hit him yet!

3rd cool thing: we are teaching a woman named Bobbie. We have a really hard time scheduling with her. She doesn't have a phone, she's really busy, and whenever we see her she never has her calendar so she's

never sure when she's free. This week she had to cancel our appointment. A few days after that we felt like we needed to stop by her house. Bobbie was outside with her dog. We started talking to her and she had a few minutes before she needed to leave so we started teaching her the plan of salvation. And somehow got thought the whole thing in 20 minutes....that never happens! Especially with an investigator. As we were discussing, Bobbie had some really good questions that were out of sincere interest. After we were done she

just accepts the whole Plan of Salvation and said, "well I've got a little bit to ponder about then". And that was it. No hesitation even though a few minutes before she believed in heaven and he'll and didn't know that our spirits lived with God before this.

We've had a ton of amazing investigators pop out of nowhere this week!!

Someone a couple weeks ago said something that I really liked. "Excitement and fear are the same emotion. You just need to pick which one you want to feel".

but that's about it for the week! love you all!:)

Week 18

Hey everyone! This week has been great!

This week I have had several conversations about prayers. Why is it that we can't always get a "yes" or a "no" answer right away? The "just wait" answers are no fun! In a way I like to compare this to a
cake. When we are receiving a "just wait" answer it's because the ingredients aren't quite in line yet! God has the ingredients all gathered, but He needs to put the ingredients in the batter at the proper time in order for the cookies to turnout right! Sometimes when we are waiting for the answers to prayers, God is still in the mixing processing. He has to wait until just the right time for the batter to be mixed to perfection, because of course His cake would be done perfectly. The hardest period of time is the "bake" period. God has to wait until the cake is not too early and not over done, otherwise it wouldn't be up to par. So when you're not receiving an answer to your prayer, God just hasn't finished baking your perfect cake! So in reality, when our answer is "just wait", we need to realize that he is actually saying, "hey it's ok. I've got it covered. Your cake is being baked. If I give it to you now all you'll have is a ton of ingredients with no recipe. Just let me handle it!"

Funny story for the week: sister Richardson and I were out tracting. As we were going along I saw a white rope on the ground,so I slyly looked at sister Richardson ad said, "hey look! It's a snake!" Sister
Richardson looks at it and she says, "whooaa!,cool! Although I think it's only the skin!!". She walks a little closer. "Hey.... That's just a rope! Aww Sister quinton!! Rude!!"  Hmmm well I thought it was
funny:)

Another funny story: in this same neighborhood as the alleged "snake" we were about to head to our appointment, when we see a young guy walking down the street. We decided that we should probably talk to him. We started walking across th street, he sees us and starts quickly heading our way. As he's walking up to me, he says, "hey can I have a hug?" As he's saying this, he had his arms outstretched and was swooping in to hug me and I was panicking!! I threw my arms up and stammered, "umm. Uhh. WAIT!! Uhh" right before he was about hug me up he stops. Then with a smile says, "I'm totally kidding, I'm Mormon, I just wanted to see how you'd react!!" Phew. I was relieved!

This week we went to see a certain member of our ward twice. In our first visit, we came a little early and knocked some houses in a neighboring street, the. Headed over to our appointment. Second visit,
we went straight to her house and the first thing she told us is that two days ago they had found a Book of Mormon that someone had been burning. ...we had been there two days ago...we were so shocked that someone had gone out of their way to burn the book we had given them!!

This same ward member that we visited had some really intense mission stories. She has served her mission in Russia and as she was telling us some of the things that had happened to her my jaw just dropped! She'd been chased by drunk men, put in jail and was almost kidnapped. When I say almost, I mean that they literally had her and her companion in the kidnappers car and they had been driving for several hours into the woods. She was making her peace with God and she thought that that was going to die. How scary is that!

We had a couple of really cool spiritual experiences this week as well. We are teaching a man named Gus. His wife is a less active member. In our lesson I felt like I needed to give him a specific date
for him to be baptized. When I told him that date that he should be baptized on he paused. Then said, "you know...I feel like The Lord has been preparing me for 22 years for this. I feel an urgency in my body, like I need this and that we don't have much time." So cool!! In the closing prayer, I asked him if he would pray specifically to know if the date I had given him was right for him. So he starts his prayer, and right towards the end of it he said, "and Heavenly Father, the sisters think I should be baptized on the 21st...so is that the day for me?" As he said this I got warms chills down my spine. At the closing of his prayer, he had this really excited look on his face!

Another cool story is we have a great member of the ward named, janell. She is a member, but her husband is not. She's been teaching him the missionary discussions and reading scriptures with him every night for the past couple of months. He's had some things holding him back from meeting with us, but yesterday janell called us up and she was so excited! she told us that her husband had decided that now was the time to meet with us!!

 

This week has been so great!! Love you all! :)