Week 28

Hey! This week has been going pretty good!

 

We do tons and tons of service each week. During the day there is hardly any one that's ever home, so we have planned service for almost every single day for several hours! Its so much fun! This past week we got to help groom horses on one day! It was definitely fun. For another of our service activities we help out at an assisted living home. This past week when we went we helped them write out cards to send home to their families. One particular woman named Elsa wasn't particularly happy about having to write a letter. She was very determined to get out of the home and start walking to her home in new York, which in her mind was only a 5 minute walk down the road. Elsa said, "what do you want me to write? 'Help!! I'm stranded!!!' ...hmm yeah I think I'll write that..." ha ha it was really funny and she was completely serious when she said it.

 

We've had a couple of really cool miracles this week. We were visiting with a woman named Vikki Eddington, her husband is a long time inactive member, and she hadn't ever been a member. We were sitting at her house talking to her when she said, "ya know.. I decided that I want to give up smoking. and actually coffee probably isn't healthy, maybe ill give that up too. Oh and also, It's been 28 years since I've heard the missionary discussions. They've probably changed since then, you should go through them with me!" Needless to say sister Christensen and I were pretty excited to have a person make themselves into an investigator.

 

Another cool miracle that happened was with a woman named Susan Parker. Actually almost the same thing that happened with Vikki happened with Susan. We were sitting down talking to Susan and she asked us a bunch of questions about our believes and asked for a book of Mormon and said that she wanted to learn more about our church! It was pretty awesome.

 

This past Saturday we had a reaaaaally long service scheduled. A less active family had a bunch of trees to chop down and make into a wood pile. We knew that it was going to be a lot of work so we called our whole district and asked them all to come down and help us. We all got there and started getting to work. Brother Parker(the less active) called us over from chopping wood and asked us to help him cut a tree down. He had mostly done it himself already, but the tree had gone the wrong way and would've landed on the house if it had not been caught by another tree. Our job was to tie a rope around the fallen tree and pull it the correct way so that it wouldn't land on the house. We started pulling as brother parker started sawing the tree again. The rope snapped out of nowhere and we all went tumbling backwards to the ground. The elder in front of the group had the rope snap him on his arm and stomach and you could clearly see where it had hit him. My companion had started a video right at the beginning, although she'd faced the camera towards the tree because we all were pretty sure that the tree was going to hit the house, so she wanted to catch it getting smashed. After the rope broke we all were wishing that the camera had faced us instead because that would've been pretty funny to see!!!

 

yesterday right before church one of the councilors walked up and told us that one of the youth speakers and an adult speaker could not show up for church today, so we were asked to speak. Goodness...definitely a little bit intimidating getting up and speaking when you have no time to prepare anything. But it actually went pretty well!!!

 

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

 

 

Week 27

Hey everyone!! This week has been going really well!!

 

Sister Christensen and I are having a TON of fun together. We had a lot of meetings this week, all of which were really awesome and uplifting. During the day we spend a lot of time doing service. We've helped with farming, gardening, grooming horses and all sorts of things!! It's definitely been a lot of fun.

 

This week we put a family of 5 on date for baptism!! It was so awesome!! In the lesson we talked about the holy ghost a lot and how it feels like a warm blanket. In the closing prayer the little boy said, "...and thank you so much heavenly father!! I am so excited to be baptized together with my family!!!". I'm really excited for them. They each have the desire to come to church and go to all of the activities and stuff. One of the other little boys has a hearing problem and he isn't supposed to get his ear wet. We aren't sure how we are going to work around that, but I'm sure we will find some way to do it!!!:)

 

oh also....this is random buuuut....did you know taco bell now serves breakfast!?!? SO GOOD. Another random thing is we recently found out that pitted dates wrapped in bacon is YUMMY! odd combo, right??

 

On Friday we had a half mission conference and we were told to bring a shirt that we could ruin. They would not tell any of us what it was for. We got there and we had a really spiritual meeting and talked about becoming consecrated. at the very end of the meeting we  found out what the shirts were for. We "rent our clothes" and wrote our names on half of it, as a pledge to be consecrated missionaries. It was pretty cool.

 

We had the opportunity to go to the nationals game as well!! That was SO MUCH FUN!! 2 missions were invited to come and so we got permission from the quorum of the 12 apostles to go!

 

Well, I believe that is it for the week!!! :) love you all.

 

Email to Kara:

WOMANN!!!! OHH mah goodness, thank you SOO much for the backcombing brush!!!! Goodness I have no idea how it got here by Monday, but that's pretty funny! lol its been working very nicely!!! I actually had a woman say...so...how do you get your hair to stay up so nicely?? Is it all just hair?? So I was like "hmm well let me just bring you into the world of back combing" ha ha

 

I still like sister Christensen a lot!! We think pretty alike so its really funny, sometimes we'll just be sitting in silence then all the sudden we will both start talking at the same time about the same topic. Same brain wave or something. Its funny!! we picked up some flarp last week. bahaha greats $1.50 ever! lol its provided all sorts of entertainment while we're sitting in the car.

 

Email to Mom:

Living with members is actually a ton of fun!! The other day they sat me down and had a missionary talk with me as the new sister and told me that I would be treated like their daughter and that if I need anything that I should tell them and that if anything happens then they would feel personally responsible. They also told me that if something happens with the environment that they take their food storage very seriously and that they have added us to the amount of stuff they would need, so they got enough to cover us.

 

 

Week 26

Hey family! This week has been really exciting! Before Thursday there wasn't really much that happened, but now there is a lot that has happened!

 

On Thursday we had transfers. I sat in the big chapel wondering what in the world was going to happen. Finally president Riggs says, "aaaaand sister quinton is going to catoctin ward and is serving with Sister Christensen! Oh and also, we are going to take the elders out of the Hamilton ward and these sisters will be over both wards by themselves". Well needless to say I was quite shocked to be over two wards and also excited that my companion's last name was Christensen ha ha.

So, that's not the only change that I had to get used to. Not only is our area HUGE, but we are living with members as well! They are wonderful people, but it was definitely something to get used to.
Sister Christensen is very nice! We've been having a ton of fun together! She's been out a year and she livings in south Jordan, Utah.

The town I currently live in is TINY, smaller than Rexburg. The grocery store consists of a 711,  and the closest car wash is an hour a way. We spend a lot of time in the car.

I got some sad news this week. Ok let me rewind for a second. So the day before transfers sister Wilcox and I had an appointment with a woman named Mary Gibson. She had Parkinson's. I'd been coming to her house every single week for the past 6 months to play games with her as service. I called her to cancel the appointment this past week because we had a ton of stuff to do before I left, but right as I was about to end the call I asked her if I could stop by one last time to say goodbye. She agreed so a few hours later we showed up, hugged her, got a picture and left. Fast forward a couple of days. I was sitting in the car with Sister Christensen when we got a call from Sister Wilcox. She informed me that Mary Gibson was now taking the missionary lessons on the other side of the veil. Mary had gone outside to walk her service dog and she never came back. They went out searching for
her and they ended up finding her. Mary was such a sweet woman! I'm so glad to know that our spirits live on after we die, until we get resurrected. I have no doubt that Mary is happy now!

On to some happier news....this past Saturday a recent convert from the catoctin ward had the opportunity to go to the temple and do some baptisms! We went with her and sat in the little chapel area to watch her. She said that the spirit was so strong! I'm super grateful to have had that opportunity to watch her go to the temple for the first time! She had been baptized only a couple weeks prior.

One last thing....does dad recognize the name "Vicki Storrs"? She's in my new ward and she knows Grandpa Quinton! Vicki used to live in the oak harbor ward about 15 years ago. Funny how small the world is!

Well that's about everything for the week! Love you all!
 :)

 

Extra from an email she sent to Kara:

Ha ha so my companions name is Sis Christensen!! he he I was really excited when I found that out! We've been having a lot of fun! She dresses cute all the time! hmm...I don't think I have a picture with her yet...but I'll have to send one next week! We've been having a lot of fun together.

 

Life in my new home is really good! Its sooooo different living with members!!! But luckily theyre really nice. The mom owns a little home bakery thing, so theyre always cooking random treats that look really good.

 

Extra from an email sent to mom:

My week is going really great!! My new companion is awesome! Her name is Sis Christensen (funny right? ha ha )We have a ton of fun together! My two wards are currently very small. In Virginia people like to go out of town during the summer for several months. Its crazy!! Although the ward that I have met is so nice! They have been feeding us every night and we have most of our next month scheduled for dinners as well! They are so kind to us!

 

Cool story: Today we went to go get Chinese food and some random member paid for our food! We were so shocked but it definitely shows how much God is watching out for us even with the little things like that.

 

Thank you for telling me all the updates on Abi and stuff!! Man I cant believe that that happened!! That's so crazy. I'm so glad she's ok. Ill definitely keep her in my prayers.

 

 

I got the videos of Ava!! haha soooo cute!! She looks so big! I cant even imagine how big she'll look in a year!

 

I hadn't heard about the flash floods in Idaho!! Oh also, there's a woman out here and she has a daughter on a mission in brazil and she'll get back a few weeks after I do, and then she'll be going back to byu-i and so I invited her to come stay in the same apartment if she feels like coordinating that!! ha ha there's a lot of cool people who are going back to Idaho for school, I'm excited to have a ton of people there that I know.

 

Everything has been really great here!! Love you!! :)  

 

Pictures from my last few days in Rolling Valley Ward...

 

Our investigator Bobbie

Sister Parry

Lorelei is in the middle and William is on the side

 My District

 

 The Griffin Family

 

 Ice Cream run with Sister Wilcox

 

 I spilled.....

 

 Theresa Malone and I

 

 Mary Gibson and I
 

 Brother Jensen and I... When we found out I was being transferred he said "So... is it alright if I hug you before you go then???"

 Sister Mower, Sister Wilcox and I

 



 This is Sister Lagerberg. She would go on exchanges with us and drive us all over town in order to go visit her friends!

This is the Johnson Family!

Week 25

*Side Note (Sorry guys, these messages are all late, I haven't had a chance to update the last 3 weeks worth of emails until now.)

 

Hey everyone! :)

This week has been pretty swell! Transfers are coming up this week and I'm almost 100% positive that I'm leaving. I'm actually pretty excited for change!

Chris Maeger got baptized this past weekend! It was really awesome! Chris's wife, Janell, has a beautiful voice and she sung this Amazing song at the baptism. It was called, "the promise" and it's about a person making a vow to another person in the pre existence and telling them that they would find them in their life time. It was awesome. They've already been discussing going on a couples mission together someday! Also....so in one year they are able to be sealed in the temple. SO, in this particular mission we can only go to the temple once every 6 months, BUT if we have a convert that is going through the temple then we are allowed to go again. And the super duper cool thing is that I will still be on my mission a year from now, so I will be able to go to the temple with them and see them be married for time and all eternity! SO COOL!! (And sister Richardson was able to come to
the baptism as well, so that was fun!!)

Also, so last Monday when we went to D.C. We heard about a really awesome flower in the Botanical Gardens that's called the "corpse flower". It only blooms twice a year, and when it does, it smells like rotting flesh! Sadly we missed the blooming by about a week and a half.

I sang in church this week. I'm not sure why I haven't done that here before! We were able to go invite several investigators and pull the, "it would mean so much to me if you come and oh also...I might be leaving....sooooo..." Ha ha it went really well! The man I asked to accompany me was George wood, he went to Julliard!!

This week when we went to the track in the morning for our exercise, there was someone that was playing soccer on the field, and MAN, I had a hard time not running up and asking if I could play with them, or just running up, stealing their ball and heading off;) ha ha jk, BUT I realized how much I missed playing soccer, so I borrowed a soccer ball from a ward member  and I've been playing every morning since! It's been so great! :)

Fiiiiinally, there was a couple of talks I read the other day that are really good, and if you have the chance to read them they are called, "becoming perfect in Christ" in the jul 2014 ensign, by brother gong and "running your marathon" by elder wirthlin in I believe November 1989 ensign.

Love you all!!

 

Levitating for Carsten...  

 

 Princesses and the pea?

 

Brother Maeger's Baptism 

 

 With Sister Foreman

 

 Our Ding and Ditch (cookies) attire

 

 Settel Family

 

 Galloway Family

 

 DC Trip

 

 

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!:)

 

--------------------------------------

(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!!!!!:)