"I love learning"

A few snippets from Elder Quinn's letter  6/27/11


I have begun reading "Jesus The Christ". It is such a cool book. I can barely put it down at night. All I want to do is read it. The district that was here before us is leaving next week and it's a nice wake up call that we will be leaving soon and we won't be having the safety of the MTC.


As far as our service assignment, every Monday morning we clean the same building at 6 in the morning. It's nice but sometimes I think the janitors make stuff up just so we stay busy. But it's nice to get up and work


So some one asked if I can change my computer to Russian alaphabet. I can its really easy on these computers because we do it a lot for our TALL lab. Apparently keyboards in Ukriane will have english letters because computers are an American thing so they just buy covers with the different letters on them. I keep forgetting to tell you how awesome my teachers are. Brother Doroshkin grew up in Russiauntil he was 5 then moved to the U.S. He converted to the church all by himself. He was interested in it read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it. Then he called the Missionaries and said Ï want to be baptized." He is an awesome guy. Then we have sister Hakes who is so nice. She got back from her mission like 2 months ago from Russia. She is a really good teacher and helps us understand the language. I't's crazy because in Russian you congugate every word practically. You can conjgate names too which is just crazy.


It sounded like the reunion was really fun. I'm jealous that I couldn't be there but I'm glad you all enjoyed yourselves. Melissa I'm glad the twins were sleeping well. I bet you loved to show them off at the reunion.  I hope you guys took a lot of pictures. Dave take the record time you got on the Alpine Slide at Park City and subtract 30 secs. I am sure I am much more aerodynamic then you are therefore increasing my speed. haha. Katie those stories you told me were really cool to hear I wish I could have gone on that family bus tour it sounded awesome


Well everyone just know that I love you all so much and miss you a lot but I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world then here at the MTC. Thank you all for your support.   Elder Quinn

You Say What?

Старейшйна Quinn (Elder Quinn) is studying Russian for his mission in the Ukraine. 


Elder Quinn wrote on 6/27/11: ..."so for right now I would probably give myself a B- as far as language goes. I can read anything and can teach lessons but it is getting harder to understand our investigators/teachers, because they are starting to talk faster and use new words. But it is going really well. I've been thinking a lot about that talk about the man who cuts back the bush so that it will grow better. I'm pretty sure I'm being cut back really far." 

The Cyrillic alphabet is used for the Russian language.  For those of you not familiar with this alphabet (like myself), here it is...   

The Cyrillic Alphabet and its pronunciations...

All In A Day's Work

We asked Chase what his "basic" daily schedule was at the MTC. Here is his answer:

I'll quickly write what one of my days looks like.

Monday: Up at 5:45

Service Project starts at 6 (only on Mondays)

Breakfast at 7:50

Personal Study at 8:25

Classroom at 9:30

Lunch at 12:30

Back to classroom 1:15

Language Study at 4:15

Dinner at 5:30

GYM 6:20

TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning) 7:45

Districe Study 9:00

Personal Time 9:30

Lights Out 10:30

It's a full day. Our Devotionals are Tuesdays and Sundays. They are incredible.

Hello Family

"Hello Family"   are my two new favorite words when opening up my email.

It was great to hear from Chase and learn about his first week at the MTC. Here are a few things he mentioned in his email...   


Hello Family,                July 6, '11
* A normal day consists of 8 hours of class room time, 4 hours of personal study, 1 hour for P.E. and then a hour for each meal. So for quick math that's 16 hours a day which leaves only 8 hours for sleep.


* I played basketball with Elder Collingsworth (starting freshman "forward" this past season for BYU Basketball), he dunked on me. It's cool because everyone who is speaking Russian goes to gym at the same time.  We all sit together by this big window and we call ourselves the Iron curtain.


*This week I have studied and worked harder than I ever have before. 


*So next I want to talk about the 4th of July celebration we had.  On Saturday night we had a special MTC fireside where we talked about America and the Restoration it was really cool, but the coolest part was at the end. They projected a giant map onto the wall and as the Choir sang "Called to Serve", every mission began to pop up on the map and as they did everyone who was going there cheered it was really cool.  Then we were allowed to stay out and watch the fire works from the "stadium of fire". 

MTC...By The Numbers (Missionary Training Center)

I like numbers and I found this interesting.  I hope you will too.

Provo MTC by the Numbers:  2,443—Missionaries in the Provo MTC the day the New Era visited. The number ranges from 1,700 to 2,700.    4,300—The most missionaries the Provo MTC has had at one time.   3, 8, or 12—Weeks a missionary will spend in the MTC, depending on the language he or she is learning.    324—New missionaries who reported to the MTC the day we visited.     Between 200 and 500 arrive each Wednesday.   300—Average number of missionaries who participate in the MTC choir.   50—Languages taught at the Provo MTC, including Icelandic and Malagasy.   26—Languages MTC meetings are translated into for missionaries learning English as a second language.   2,700—Service people, including employees, service missionaries, and volunteers, who keep the MTC running.   15—The smallest number of missionaries in a branch. The most is 75.    40%—Percentage of investigators who call the Referral Center who then agree to have missionaries visit them.  25,000—The most calls the Referral Center has received in one week.


One of Chase's letters said:  There were 509 Missionaries that checked in on June 29th the second largest group ever. There were 20 Russian Speakers the largest Russian group ever. So that was really cool to learn. My district is below the sisters dorms and one night the fire alarm went off. Apparently a girl was straiting her hair and her straitner started to smoke. She was really lucky that it was before lights out because let me tell you I need my sleep. Some of my roomamtes make fun of the dark blue circles under my eyes. I feel like I am always tired. But we had a devotional speaker say if your not tired then you aren't being a missionary so I guess that means I'm being a pretty good one hahah.

Good-bye

Dad, Chase and Mom

A quick teary good-bye.  Chase was ready to go.  
He didn't look  back. 

Packing

2 years - 2 suitcases - 2 words:  pack lightly !

Don't hold back on packing ties though :)

Missionary Training Center

The MTC

This is where it all begins.  Chase will be trained at the MTC (located in Provo, Utah) to be a missionary and to learn the Russian language.  He will be there for twelve weeks.  He reports to the MTC June 29th, 2011.

I am Chase's mother and will be writing this blog. This should be a fun, quick way of checking in on Chase.  I will keep his current mailing address posted on the right hand side of this blog.  I understand that a letter from family and friends is one of a missionary's favorite things.  I hope you will enjoy this blog!   -Elaine Quinn