First correct address given...ha ha

As for my week I will satrt out with our investigators. Elder Saenz and I were on exchanges and were able to find two new investigators. This is Elder Saenz's last transfer and he is a really good missionary. It was nice to serve with him. One of them we met with the next day and has a pretty intense past his name is F.... He is a historian and knows a lot of things about other churches and a lot of vocab that I didn't understand. We will definately have to get members on lessons with us.He was really cool and even came to our movie night whuch I will talk about later. The other one we found didn't come to the lesson but he had given us his address and I think for the first time in my mission it was correct haha. He was super nice and still interested so we need to follow up on that.

We had a cool experience with P... We were doing weekly planning and both felt we needed to talk to him and extend a baptismal date. We prayed about it and called him up. The call went well but he didn't have a ton of time. We said we would call him the next day. The next day we called him and he had read more than what I had asked him. We had a long onversation about baptism and why Christ was baptized specifically to show us his example and to be obedient. I promised him as a representative of Jesus Christ he would receive his answer that night if he prayed. The next day was Sunday and we talked to him about it but still nothing. He is going to B... this week for 4 weeks so that is really too bad. He needs to get baptized!

The next story is our miracle O... Maybe you remember about 4 weeks ago a man came to get a Book of Mormon from us. He lives across the river and found us online. I called him this week and invited him to church. On Sunday Morning he called and asked if he could come even if he forgot his book. I said of course. He came and we talked briefly about the Book of Mormon and what he has read. These are his exact words. "I haven't read much, (2 Nephi 32!) but I feel like I really want to read the whole book. I read just a little everyday... it just feels like I should." My jaw litterally dropped. He is so ready for the Gospel. It is amazing. We talked about meeting with us and he seemed excited. It is so cool!

On other news we met with a member to talk about how we can help his spouse get baptized. He has been a member for awhile but his wife has shown very little interest. Her name is T... so keep her in your prayers as we call tonght to see if we can come by. 

This past weekend we held a movie night and watched Legacy. We had 4 non-members come! It was a very successful night. We talked briefly about the pioneers and what they did. I think it went really well. Also this weekend there will be two baptisms in our district. The Sisters are teaching a sister by the name of Looba. And the Elders have one with a man named Leonid. These will be my first baptismal interviews. It will be a really cool experience. 

Well I love you all a ton. Thanks for all that you do!

Love Elder Quinn

   

Loved General Conference

So we were able to watch General Conference this past weekend. It was so good, like always. I loved Elder Hollands talk. I always feel like his are my favorite. P.... came and also mentioned how much he enjoyed his talk. He said he would soon be Prophet, I then explained to him how the next Prophet is called. I also really enjoyed Elder Christopherson's in Priesthood. He just really talked about becoming men and accepting that role. He also spoke about achieving success as men and how we need to strive in what ever field to be the best. It got me really excited to get my career going of course after I get home ;).

Well we had another good week of finding but not a good week of meeting with those we found. As a total we got skipped out on 12 times. We only met with two of our investigators. It has been really disappointing. But we were able to get a hold of almost all of them last night and set up with them for this week. But one thing that was really disappointing was I called P.... and he feels that he doesn't need to meet with us anymore. He says that he only wants to meet when he has questions. I explained as clearly as I could what our goals are for him and why we meet with him. He said he understood but doesn't see the importance of it. But he will still come to church and read. Please pray specifically for him as we try to come up with a way to meet with him and teach him. He is so close he just has to take one step of faith.

As for our other investigators not a lot has changed as we didn't meet with many of them. But I want to write a little bit about what I have been studying in the scriptures. In 2 Nephi 29 Nephi talks a lot about other people that the Lord has taken from the House of Israel. We also see this in the allegory of the olive tree in Jacob 5. I have been thinking a lot about these branches that were broken off. Specifically where they were placed. I have noticed that in almost all ancient civilizations there is a building reserved for special worship. There are also certain ordinances involved in this worship. I have been thinking a lot about how close Ukraine is to Jersalem, and if you don't know this in most branches you can find all 12 tribes of Israel here. It is just super cool to think about.

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

Love Elder Quinn

P.S. Mom could you send me some soup recipes. It is getting a little cooler here so soup season is back.

It is the Spirit that bears witness

So my week was a little bit better than last week.We found 6 new investigators by using different finding ways so that was really good. One of them is book tabling. I put up some pictures and there is one of Elder Young doing it. It is pretty self explanatory. It's a table with books on it. (It's a cup with dirt in it haha) but that seemed to do really good. 

As far as our investigators go not a lot has changed. We met with V..... and he said he read. We also met with V... but he is pretty tough to teach. When we first start our lesson he comes out with guns blazing. He always finds scriptures in the Bible that disagree with what we teach. Then we over come those and the Spirit comes into the room and he settels down. He is still not getting how important it is to come to church. He said he wants to know it is true so we talk about how if he comes to church he can receive an answer. We then invite him and he says he can't because he has his own church. So that was too bad. But it was cool we had 4 investigators at sacrament meeting. Two of which came from book tabling. 

It is all good to be finding new investigators but it doesn't help if we can't meet with them. P.... is doing good he is just busy. I don't think he fully understands the importance of our visits. I think he thinks they are just fun gospel discussions. We need to inform him that we don't just get together with him to see what he believes but to help him come closer to Christ by being baptized. So we will see how it goes. 

On Saturday we got a text from the Zone Leaders telling us about the new missionary ages. That is way cool. I can't believe that they changed them or rather the Lord changed them. I really think something big is happening soon. This weekend we get to watch  General Conference. I can't wait. Of course I won't have mom's cinnamon buns.... but maybe a snickers haha. Dad asked me which age if I was given the choice would I have picked. I think my mission has been too important to me to even think about having picked another time to come out. If you all remeber I had the option of going a transfer early but I chose not to. I am so happy that I followed the Spirit because there would have been so many things I might have missed out on or changed. 

So last week Justin wrote a story about how noise always seems to come right before a spiritual experience. I can relate to that very well. It always seems as soon as I am about to talk with someone and they actually stop, every bus in Ukraine drives by. I have found that asking the person to move over or even saying that this isn't the best place to talk so maybe we can meet another time. Satan tries hard to stop spiritual moments but as far as I have seen he usually loses. If we have the Spirit with us theres not a lot he can do to stop a sincere testimony. That is one of the best things about the Gospel. 

Well everyone I love you all so much thank you so much for you prayers and support. 

Love Elder Quinn

P.S. I put up some pictures of a Zoo we went to last week. They aren't like they are in America. Small cages for big animals. It was pretty sad.

Book Tabling

me with other missionaries 

A zoo we visited.  Small cages for large animals
pretty sad

very sad another small cage 

Record spiritual impressions

Ahhh Natalie Hailey is adorable. Thanks for putting up the pictures I am so glad that all went well. I am so excited for you and Johnny. Thanks everyone for the letters this week.

So this week was not so good on finding. We didn't find any new investigators but we got a lot of numbers and have a lot of potential. So that is good. The lesson with the family of 8 didn't really work out. We met the dad at a bus stop and he said that they were leaving for the selo and didn't have time. We then got into a pretty heated discussion about us not worshipping Mormon. He just wouldn't listen to us. But it ended better than it began because he said we could call him on Monday and set up. So that was good at least. 

As for our other investigators  ____  we have been working with for a little but he just isn't willing to make the necesary steps. We have tried to explain it to him but he just "has no time." We will see how it goes. _____ is still not understanding  the Word of Wisdom. ____  got back this week but couldn't come to church. Hopefully we can meet with him this week. He sounded really happy on the phone so I hope it means he has received his answers. We have a cool lesson planned for him. We finally found ___  but not looking super good. He said he has no time for church stuff because he had to make money to live. He said he still wants to be baptized but doesn't have the ability to come to church after his baptism. So at least he understands that it is important to come after. But ya that is about it for our investigators who we meet with right now.

This past week was a Leadership Conference. It was so good. We talked a lot about getting the sand out of our shoes. President feels that we as a mission no longer have big rocks of disobedience. We need to start working on the little things. It was cool to talk about these small things and see how they can be eliminated. It will be a really fun district meeting tomorrow. I have really enjoyed this opportunity to serve as district leader. I have learned so much. It has been super cool.

Going on about my foot everything is fine. I contacted the same night that it happened. And the doctors know what they were doing it was just a little different haha. It was really funny sister Klebingat sent me a txt and this is how it went. Sister Klebingat: Elder Quinn I have updated your mother on you status. She seemed a lot more worried today, perhaps you shouldn't have sent the goriest pictures to her. Me: But I was smiling in all of them. Sister Klebingat: Perhaps you should have drawn a smiley face on your foot. haha it was so funny.

So one thing we talked about at leadership trianing was keeping track of spiritual impressions. I have realized that I think a lot about my investigators and I sometimes forget the things that come to my mind. President advised us to keep a little journal with us to writedown these feeling and impressions. So I will start doing that. I would also invite all of you to have a place to record spiritual impressions. President Klebingat said if we receive it, wirte it down, and use it, then we will get more of it. 

Well I love you all so much. Thanks agian for the pictures of Hailey.

Love Elder Quinn