FAITH

We met with Oleg and Vova who are in the part member family twice this week. It had been amazing preogress. When I first showed up he refused to even listen to us. Now on our last lesson he read two scriptures. His wife told us afterward that we have no idea how many prayers we are answering by teaching them. It was really cool. The lesson went great. Vova said he would try to pray and Oleg said not yet. But that's ok because read from the scriptures. 

Dima came to church even with a hurt leg. It was great to see him come. The members love him so much. I really hope that things will start to progress with his girlfriend. We talked with his girlfriend's mom.

We weren't able to meet with many of our other investigators. But we still have them and are hoping to meet with them next week. So this week I too have been studying a lot about faith. Faith is a very interesting thing. People keep saying that we are the chosen generation, well I wanted to know why. I looked up some stories in the scriptures involving amazing faith. And there are some crazy ones. Mountains moving, waters being devided, armies being stopped, and even the sun stopping. I wanted to know why those people are the chosen generation. They can do all of those amazing things. Then I realized why and what I am doing here. I am telling people to pray about a book they have never heard of before and promising them that they will receive an answer. What takes greater faith. Being converted after you see a mountain move or after you get down on your knees and ask of Heavenly Father if these things are true with only the knowledge that you will feel a still small voice? Well I honestly don't know the answer to that question. But I know that it takes amazing faith to believe with out seeing miracles. So I guess that is the answer I came up with for myself. That this generation is able to believe simple on words. 

I do believe in miracles and amazing things happening even in this time Because I have seen what prayer can do. 


So here is some more things that I found out about Faith this week. I have been really studying it so I can have more of it. I looked at some of the biggest examples of faith in the Book or Mormon. They were the brother of Jared, the strippling warriors, Nephi son of Nephi, and King Lamoni's wife. All of them had great faith for different reasons. The brother of Jared "had no faith, he knew everything." That was pretty crazy to read. I didn't know that someone could reach that point. The strippling warriors were "obidient to every command with exactness." That is what I have been trying to do as much as possible. Nephi son of Nephi was given nearly the same rights of the God head. Anything he desired was also desired by our Heavenly Father. And finally King Lamoni's wife. This was a small stroy that I didn't think a lot about. Ammon says to her she has greater faith than all of the Nephites. I wanted to know why. It was because she believe in Ammon after only hearing her servants talk about him. She came to him saying I know you are sent from God because I heard that you were. That is it pretty cool.

A fan of David Archuleta, the Mormon

So the moment you have all been waiting for. I will be staying in Illichosk and will be getting Elder Karashov as my new companion. He is from Bulgaria and what I have heard is he speaks English pretty well. He is only one transfer older than me so we are both semi new to the mission. It is going to be a great experience serving with him I can already tell. I hope his Russian is better than mine because I really struggled this week. Words I knew I couldn't understand and I couldn't get out what I wanted. It was very frustrating. I am hoping that since Bulgarian and Russian are very close he will be able to help me learn Russian.

David Archuleta 

As for other news we found 4 new investigators this week. Mom remember when you said that you prayed that David Archuletta would have a positive influence on the church. Well who knew that his influence would come this far. Dima's friend is named Nelia. She is in LOVE with David Archuletta. She has a ton of shirts and pictures of him. She says that David is the only reason why she has hope in society. She showed me pictures of his family and knew all of their names and ages. She is really nice. She has a son who speaks English really well. The reason why she wanted to meet with us is to learn about David's religion. She heard Dima talking about Mormons and she wanted to meet with us so bad. She took our number and actually called us. That has only happened one other time.

Cultural Events

I forgot to tell you, as a zone we went and saw the nutcracker in the Odecca Opera house. Apparently it is famous for some reason. But it was really cool. It was our first cultural event. We can do one cultural event every two transfers. It was actually really cool. 

The Area Book

...So lately I have really wanted to do a lot of former investigator finding. So I took on the Area Book. We have been doing a lot of stop bys and calling formers for the past couple of weeks. And we are just now starting to see the blessings. At the begginning people weren't home or told us to call or come back later. Now people are actually setting up with us and showing up to meetings.  My goal is to have every old inverstigator sheet with my name on it saying I contacted them. Obviously I would like it a lot better if they all got baptizied, but I really want to see what kind of people we can find through the book. I hope it all goes well.

But a cool story about the Area Book project. I called a man by the name of Nikolai a  couple of weeks ago. He tole me to call back later as most do. Then while going by the house of another former investigator we ran into Nikolai. He was super happy to see us and wanted to set up a meeting with us. Unfortunately he was in Odessa all this week so we couldn't do it but hopefully this week or the next. But it was really cool because he said "ya you guys called me and I was thinking about when we could meet right as I ran into you." I am really excited to meet with him. He has twin sons and one is hadicapped. He is a super humble and hard working man. I hope we are able to meet with him.

My "Area"

Talk about "loving thy neighbor"

 There are apartments all over 

The goats are willing to "feast upon the Word" literally

I told the people "You have a beautiful bear!"  I know the word
for "dog" but I wanted to call it a bear.  They laughed so hard. 

This is what we cross to get to a member's home

The Port 

Follow your Mission President - the Lord will bless you!

Hey everyone thanks for the great letters. First of all happy birthday Natalie. So real quick thanks for all of the advice about trunky companions. It is especially hard for Elder Wells because before me he had killed off 4 elders. But ya I keep saying 4th quarter Elder. And when he brings up things about home I say "Sorry I can't hear you I'm too busy focusing on my purpose." It gets him pretty good so that's been working. And ya I've gone on a couple of exchanges so Elder Wells and another Elder going home with him could be together for two days. Hopefully that got all of their trunky talk out. But don't worry he is still a great missionary and I learn a lot from him!!

Dima, me and Elder Wells - Dima's 5 yr old son took the photo

Now for the good parts. VICTORY. We finally met with and taught Dima's girlfriend Larissa. We also taught his grandma and his girlfriends mother. They were all so excited about it that they took extra pamphlets and Books of Mormon to give to their husbands. It was seriously so cool. We set up another time to meet, but when we called them Zhena their son had a really high temperature (102 degrees). So we couldn't go over. The next day was Sunday and only Dima was able to come. I was really happy to see him but I really wanted his family to come. And what is even more unfortunate is that Dima will be in Kiev all week so we won't be able to meet with his family. I am really sad about that. 

As for other good news, we found 7 new investigators this week. It was awesome. One day we found 4 in one day. I am so greatful to the Lord for helping us to find all of these people. And to be honest we really needed them. We were down to 2 investigators and were in desperate need of more. Now this is why I believe we found 7 this week. On Tuesday we had a Zone Meeting. In this meeting we talked about finding investigators and how many we should/can find. A lot of the Elders were saying it's not possible to find 7 in a week. Therefore we should lower the goal to 3 or 4 and then work up to 7. I did NOT agree with this. I said "President Klebingat has said in all of his letters that we CAN find one a day and 7 a week." They all said ya but we still need to work up to it. After the meeting Elder Wells and I were talking about lowering our goal or keeping it at 7. I said well lets see how this week goes. And lo and behold we found 7 new investigators. I honestly think that was a miracle to show us that the Lord will help us and also that we should always follow our Mission President. 

Yesterday was Christmas for Ukraine. I feel like I have celebrated Christmas every weekend for the past 4 weeks. haha. The first one was our Christmas, next was New years eve and that is when Santa comes, next was their Christmas, and next week is "Old new years." They have so many Holidays it is crazy. 

I am really nervous about tonight. There is a part member family in our branch. We have been going over to try to teach the husband.  Last week though we had him play the game and answer a question about a scripture. So this week were going over to teach the first lesson to him and his son. His wife and daughter are amazing members. Please pray that both his son and he will be there tonight. His son has been coming to church for the past couple of weeks on his own. We love this family and  really want to get things moving with them. 

Fun Photos

Me trying to calm the waves.  It is a lot harder than it sounds,  haha!

It is in Ukrainian, but it says, "I can run to the gate in 3 seconds, 
how about you?  Everyone has dogs here.

People say it is good for your health...but they are afraid of squasnaks?
 haha  It is really cold.

Keep dreaming....haha

We had to stay in because of New Year's celebrations - It drove me crazy, I'd rather be working!

Both good news and bad news with Dima. The good news is we were able to meet with him twice this week and one of those times we talked with his girlfriend for a long time. She is really nice. She gave us tarts and tea. It was super good. She had to go to work so she couldn't sit in on the lesson. But every step of preogress with her is awesome. The bad news is he didn't come to church this week again. The only reason why I'm not really up set is that it was New Years day and people go crazy on New Years but I'll talk about that later. But ya he is still awesome but he needs to realize the importance of coming to church.

So this weekend was really lame. We had to be in by 4:00 on Saturday and we could only go to church on Sunday then we had to stay inside all day. It drove me crazy. After working for 10 hours a day I couldn't handle being inside. But it was for the better. On Saturday no one would even stop for us. Everyone had somewhere to go and somewhere to be. New Years eve is when their Santa comes. So this is the big one for them. The whole center street was turned into a giant party. The next morning while walking to church there were people just sleeping on stairs because they drank too much the night before. It was pretty sad.

Alright so it is now 25 days until my companion goes home. He is starting to get a little trunky and he gets really sensitive when I bring it up. Any advice dad or brother-in-laws would be much appreciated. He keeps asking me questions about the styles in America. I just tell him I don't remember but ya it's getting pretty hard.

So really cool story with a not so cool ending. We were on a bus going to Odecca and an old lady sat down next to me. I was trying to memorize the first vision in Russian and I could tell she was peaking over my shoulder to read it. I moved it towards her so she could see it easier. Then I flipped it over quickly. She then asked me what it was. I went on to tell her about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. I gave her a Restoration Pamphlet and she instantly started reading it. She greabbed my shoulder and said "This is Truth" and I said "Yes it is." I tried to get her number but her phone was broken so she said it wasn't worth it. She promised to come to church on Sunday because she wanted to know more "truth." I was so excited. She was really nice and super open. But she didn't come on Sunday. I was so dissappointed. I really wish I would have asked for her address or something. I'm hoping maybe she will come next week.

Well thanks again for all the letters. I love you all so much.

Love Elder Quinn

Hello from Home

Elder Quinn's stocking hanging at home
(w/tag from MTC) 

Hello Edler Quinn!  On Christmas morning we were able to "skype" with Chase for a hour!  BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER.  Chase looked great and sounded great.  We are Thrilled to see him doing so well and seeing him so happy!   We missed having him home this year, but would not want him anywhere else!

Christmas morning - skyping with Elder Quinn!!