"And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost."

letter from May 27

Hey everyone thanks for the letters. I got them from dad, mom, Melissa, Natalie, and Grandma Hoole. Well Hannah don;t go ruining the Honda... I am hoping to get that when I get home hint hint ;). 

Well to begin with, the unthinkable happened and I am being transferred. It is honestly a big shock as I figured I would just finish my mission here. But I will being going to a place called Billa Tserkva. It means White Church in Ukrainian. Elder Petersen just came from there so he has been telling me a lot about it. I am very excited. Elder Petersen will be training here. I will finish training a missionary named Elder Dubai who was half trained by Elder Hilton my old companion from Cherkassy. It will be fun to meet some new people. I have a goal to not tell any of the members that it is my last transfer. They get more trunky than the missionaries. 

But about our week. Arina is doing great. She spoke with her Grandma and she sais she can get baptized after she investigates the other churches and waits 6 months. We will see what her mom says. Hopfully she can talk with her. But she is doing really well. Her understanding of the scriptures and what we are teaching is amazing. 

We found a new investigator or rather he found us. He was an investigator that Elder Pace and I found about 2 months ago. We had an amazing first lesson but then he disappeared. Apparently he was in Moscow and he couldn;t answer his phone but really wanted to. We went over the first again and he agreed to be baptized. We didn't give him a date yet but he is definately ready for the Gospel. 

Last week dad asked me for a scripture that sums up my mission. I decided to pick 3 Nephi 12:6

 6 And blessed are all they who do ^ahunger and ^bthirst after^crighteousness, for they shall be ^dfilled with the Holy Ghost.

One thing I have noticed is that people who really do want to know or are looking for the truth quickly receive their answers. I have learned from the examples of others that although I know this Church is true and the Book of Mormon is the word of God, I still have to "hunger and thirst after righteousness." The Lord has given us all great gifts and wants us to magnify them in everything we do. As my whole life has been building towards the mission, and honestly is it hard to think that there is life after this, I wil still need to use what the Lord has given me and continue to progress iuntil the end of my life. I have made goals as to who I want to become and what I need to do to become that person. And in this scripture there is a promise that as we strive to be better we will "be filled with the Holy Ghost." Or in other words the Lord will help us. 

Well I love you all very much. Thanks for all that you do.

Love Elder Quinn

Billa Tserkva - my new area 

       

     

Mormon Night was a Success!

letter from May 20

Well first of all Happy Birthday to dad! I can't believe you are 75.... :) it seems just like yesterday the wheel was invented... haha. I sent you a card a little late but I hope you get it soon. So last week I bought a suit. It looks pretty nice, I will put up some photos of it next week. Thanks for the early birthday gift.

Well to begin with mormon.org night was a pretty good success. We had about 20-30 people come and almost all commited to making a profile. We started out by watching the videos of the mormons in Russia. I could tell a lot of them liked it a lot. Then we shared our conversion stories while showing our profiles that we have made. We talked about what a good way this is to share the Gospel and to show everyone that we really are normal. Then we listened to Elder Nelson's conference talk a couple of years ago about using mormon.org and other websites to share the Gospel. Now we just need to follow up with everyone to make sure they make one. 

Well this week was very slow with investigators. In fact only one lesson. But it was an awesome lesson. Arina continues to progress at an amazing rate. We had a sister with us from the Relief Society and she was very impressed by her understanding of the scriptures. We taught the Word of Wisdom and we came to find out she has already been living it for the past two months beacuse Lena her friend in the church gave her a "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet. But not a lot of progress with her mom as she is taking it slow in informing her of her interest with the church.

So this next week we will be getting transfer info. I am pretty sure that I will be staying but we will see. It is pretty werid though. There are 4 Elders from my MTC group going home next week as 3 of them have to make it back in time for the Air Force. There are also two Elders in my district who are 1 transfer older than me going home next week. There are 23 missionaries going home next week and when I go home only 4. I will be the oldest missionary along with one other, Elder Welch. I can't believe it. 

Anyways dad asked me if I could pick one scripture for my mission statement what would it be? I will give it some thought this week and write about it next week. 

Well that is about it for my week. I will keep you all in my prayers.

Love Elder Quinn

Photos from Central Odessa

Zone Conference was awesome!

Just a quick update for all who didn't hear. A.....  is awesome. She has read until Alma 36. Yesterday at church she came and found us to set up with us this week. Her friend Lena brought up going on a mission. I asked Lena if she wants to go and she said yes, then i asked A...... if she wanted to go and she said, "I'm not even a member yet." I just said well give it some time that will change. It was pretty funny. 

We set up with M...... again. We are hoping to have some progress there. He has come to church a lot lately but I don't know if he is reading or praying. But he has shown a desire to learn more so we will continue to teach him. We have some members set up for our lessons so that is really good. 

This past week was Zone Conference. It was awesome. President Benett from the area presidency came and it was so cool. He talked about the meeting that all of the General authorities go to before General Conference. He said the biggest thing that President Monson pushed was member missionary coordination. Durring lunch I got to have an interview with President Benett. I talked with him about the first time he came here 1 1/2 years ago and really chewed us out. But now we are at a whole new level and it is juct cool to see how much the mission has changed. We then talked about what I do to help coordinate the work with the members. I told him some things I did in Cherkassy and some things I am trying to implement here and he really liked it. Hopefully things can really start to get going here.

Well I love you all.

Love Elder Quinn 

Mother's Day - Skyping with Elder Quinn

Early this morning May 12,  2013 at 7:00 am,  We were able to skype with Elder Quinn!

It was so much fun and a great Mother's day gift!!

He looked wonderful and so happy!  We made a few plans for when we pick him pick him up from his mission in July.  Other than that he did not want to talk about coming home.  He told us about the "I'm a Mormon" night they are having for their branch this week.  He told us about his companion and about tracting and wanting a Ukrainian tailored suit for his birthday in June.  It was great talking to him we talked for about an hour.  

Katie, Dave, Mark, Caleb were here with Dad, Mom and Hannah.  Chase actually had enough time to do a quick skype with Melissa, Justin, Andrew and Isaac in North Carolina  And Natalie, Johnny and Hailey, I think in Dallas on their "lay over" from visiting Johnny's family in Arkansas.  

I am a proud mother of a child who wants to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Plus 4 beautiful daughters and 5 (almost 7) grandchildren. 

HAPPY MOHTER'S DAY!

Christ atoned for us, died for us, and on the third day rose for us. "True He is risen"

letter sent May 6

Thanks all for the letters I got them from dad, mom, and Melissa. I was impressed to hear about dad standing up for the missionaries. Sometimes I feel like we have to defend ourselves against the branch. But we have made a lot of good strides forward. Our "I'm a Mormon" night is going to be good I hope. Elder Detro from the other companionship made a really nice poster and is making invitations this week. Hopefully it goes well.

This week we met with A.... and had a great lesson about the plan of salvation. She is progressing so fast. She has already read into Alma. She didn't talk to her mom about her meeting with us which was too bad. But she said she would see if we can talk to her. She has a perfect friend in the church who is also 17 and the only member of her family. They are great friends now. We just need to meet her mom to help her.

We also got another lesson with S....... this week. We haven't seen him for a couple of weeks now. He works every day which makes it hard to meet. But he is still really cool. We read Alma 32 with him and he liked it. It is definately a chapter that was written for him as he has a desire but now needs to turn it into action. We will be working with him to get him to church. 

Last week a couple of you asked what it has been like serving with a native. So Elder Petersen is awesome. He said when he went to America and lerned English he forgot his Russian but as he hears it, it comes back to him. I can tell that the language doesn't hold him back like it does other missionaries. The members quickly tell he is not actually from America as  his accent is really good. It has been fun to SYL with him and learn new things. He is really cool.

So yesterday was Easter here. They have a tradition where you say "He is risen" and others respond with "True He is risen." It is a really fun tradition. It helps me to remember what we are really doing here. I can't remeber who said it but there is a quote that says "When all things are said and done our message is that Christ atoned for us, died for us, and on the third day rose for us. Everything else is just an apendage to this doctrine." 

Well thanks again for everything. See ya on Sunday. 

Love Elder Quinn

Way cool investigator - Prayers are being answered

letter from April 29

So first of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH it's the big 16!! It is just too bad that the dating age was raised to "only date while your older brother is in town." But don't worry Hannah I will be more than happy to accompany you on you dates as that is my job..... 

This week was an interesting week. We set a baptismal date with A...... this week but then he didn't come to our next lesson after seeing him 10 mins before on the street. He hasn't answered his phone either so we had to drop it. That is the third date in a row that has just dissappeared. Not sure what more we can do... 

We have a way cool investigator named A...... right now. She is 17 and super smart. Long story short she made friends with a member on Facebook and she was invited to come to seminary. She came to church and then called us to meet with us. Before our first meeting she had read until Jacob. She accepts everything we are teaching. She even woke up early on Sunday to read more in the Book of Mormon. Her mom is ok with her finding her own church but she is supposed to read the entire Bible before she makes a decision. We are hoping to meet with her mother and start teaching her as well. We will see how it goes. It is pretty funny because we have to get 2 members on each lesson because we can't teach her alone or teach 2 on 2. But a little birdie told me we are getting Sister missionaries in Center next transfer so that will be really nice to have them here. 

So prayers were answered. President Klebingat came down to do some training for the branch leadership. The Zone Leaders and I were invited to the meeting to help us understand what to do to help the branch. President asked us before hand what we wanted him to talk about. He covered it all really well. The next day we had branch council. It started out like usual but then they asked the missionaries to go. This is where it went good. I went up to the front with our progress record and began reading about out investigators and our recent converts. I asked for the help we needed and then talked about the activity that we will be doing in May. I practised this speach a lot haha. We gave them two options for the activity and they picked a "I'm a Mormon Night." Then Elder Detro from the other companionship stood up and gave his part. From then on the meeting was very organized and things came to conclusions. Call it pride but it was us that started the trend. There are still a lot of steps that we need to make with this branch but this past one was a big one. 

Alright so Mother's day is in to weeks Sunday. It is the same rules as last time so we can skype. I'm not sure where we will do it or when yet. Next week please let me know what times work for you. We are usually open on Sundays. Also let me know when Church starts. Next week we will finalize it. Also durring this skype call I plan to organize everything that has to do with mom, dad, and Hannah coming to pick me up that way we can finalize everything. So look on line at anything you want to do and I will find out how much train tickets cost and other things. 

Well that is it for me. Love you all a ton.

Love Elder Quinn

Speaking in church - FHE challenge

letter from April 22

This week was a nice week. I said good bye to Elder Pace but got to meet my new companion Elder Peterson. He is really cool. He is a little more quiet but is a great missionary. We have been speaking Russian between each other for about 3 hours a day. Not a bad start. He was adopted when he was 11 to an American Family. He and his younger sister who was 9. He doesn't seem to like to talk about it a ton so I don't ask too much. But all of the members could tell he is Russian. He is going to be really fun to serve with.

I spoke yesterday in church. Elder Detro from the other companionship soke as well. He spoke on Humility and then there was a rest Hymn of "As I have loved you" I then spoke about Loving our neighbors. I hope the members here got the message... haha hopefully it hit pretty hard. There just seems to be a lot of hard feelings between members right now. Not really sure how to help. They are good people. My talk went well. Again I just hope that the members will take it into their own lives. 

This week as far as investigators goes no one came to church which was unfortunate. But we have some people we have our eyes on. We will get referrals if it kills us. There is one man who has been coming for like 2 months because his girlfriend is a member. Long story short this family doesn't like the missionaries so she told us to leave him a lone. But I was talking to him yesterday and he said he has read to 2 Nephi 22. So sorry but we are meeting with him. I don't care what the girl says. :) Also this man from English is really cool. We offered him personal English and he came and we talked a lot about the church and life. Apparently he is looking for a church for he and his wife. So I think he came to the right place. The Calvins, the senior couple are going to invite him and his wife over for dinner and also invite us so that will be really cool.

So I hope all of you had an opportunity to invite someone to FHE. This weeks challenge is for Hannah. So There is a 16 year old girl who comes to all of the activities and sometimes to church. Her sister was baptized 8 months ago and her sisters roommate was baptized 4 months ago. She knows the church is true but her friends are swaying her the other way. Could you send me your testimony just for here and I will translate it. Our companionship isn't working with her but I have had this impression to do this twice now so I better not ignore it. Thanks!! Her name is Larissa.

Well that is it for me this week.

Love you all

Love Edler Quinn

tough week with investigators .... General Conference was awesome!

Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 3:11 AM

 Well I am staying here in Center but Elder Pace is going up to Kiev. It was really fun serving with him. I am sad he is leaving. My new companion is Elder Peterson. All I know of him so far is he was born in Russia and then adopted when he was 11 or 12. He speaks Russian perfectly so I am really looking forward to pushing myself further with him in the language. I was also made District Leader again. We also added a companionship into the district who will travel to a small group 3 hours away every week. So we will have 4 companionships in the district. It will be a challenge as there are now three different branches that we cover. 

This week was a struggle. Most of our really cool investigators have just fallen away. We are still in contact with a couple of them but the desire has faded. It was a tough week. But I am confident with the ones we have we can help them gain more faith. I spoke with C....  last night and he seemed happy to meet. Also S.... said he would meet this week so hopefully we can find some time to meet. We also have A..... and M...... but they are interesting in the sense that they really want to be baptized but won't do anything we ask them to do... so we will see about them.

This past weekend we were able to watch General Conference it was awesome!!! The talks were so good. Elder Holland's was amazing as I could really feel him speaking to me. Also Elder Bednar's was really cool as he ties the Law of Chastity into the Plan of Salvation. I am looking forward to reading all of their talks again. I have grown a deep love for the Apostles and Prophet since being on my mission. I really love General Conference. 

So this week was an exciting adventure. We were assigned to go apartment hunting for the new companionship of Elders. We had to work through a lot of people to find the right apartment with the right qualifications. One funny thing is that no one understood why we wanted two beds in the same room. It was fun explaining that. But we finally found one and closed on it so now we are stress free... kind of. 

It has been a long time since I challenged you all to do something. So here is one for you all. This past week we went to a F.H.E. at the second counsellor's house. He had invited many recent converts and some young single adults. I could tell this was really good for the ones invited as now they know how to run an F.H.E. So this week think of someone who you could invite to FHE and have them over. 

Well I love you all a lot. 

Love Elder Quinn

President Thomas S. Monson - The Prophet

The gift of tongues is real. My testimony of the Christ.

Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 4:11 AM

Hey everyone thanks for the great letters. I got them from dad, mom, Katie, Dave, Melissa, and Natalie. It sounds like everyone is in different stages of parenting. Dad and mom are spoiling Hannah... Katie and Dave are having a baby..... Melissa and Justin are going through potty training and having a baby..... and Natalie and John are tying to keep Hailey from not pulling out the front door.... that is awesome! I think my guess was right of by the end of my mission all the sisters either having a baby or with a new baby. Congrats to everyone again. Also this week is transfer information week. I am fairly confident that I am staying but we will see.

This week was really cool. We were able to meet with a lot of our investigators but they are all having a hard time doing one thing. That is coming to church. But they really are all awesome. R...... after our lesson with him sat in the church for 2 1/2 hours and read the Book of Mormon until English class started. He is super cool. We need to meet his wife soon. We are hoping to have them over to an FHE at a branch members home. Our other investigators are doing really well as well. On Thursday we didn't leave the church the entire day as we taught 5 lessons and had  English practice at night. We have been greatly blessed.

So here is a way cool story. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Straud, he is the Zone Leader. I went to his area and they had a lesson planned for that night. He told me the guy was kind of different but that they wanted to meet with him anyway. So we met him in front of a grocery store and walked with him. We asked if we were going to his apartment and he said no we are going to one of his friends. We got there and we asked who his friend is. He said :Just wait until you meet him." It was pretty creepy but we both felt really good. We walked up to the apartment and went in. There were a bunch of shoes at the door and his friend ushered us into the main room. There were 9 people there and it turns out to be a religious round table type group. It was a really cool experience. I was really worried that they would try to catch me with my Russian or try to prove us wrong but the just wanted to know what we believed. We bore testimony to them and the Spirit was really strong. We told them we had to leave and they all asked if we could come back again. One lady asked for my Book of Mormon and I gladly gave it to her. The cool part was that they were all really respectful and asked really good questions. They all gathered together as a common faith in Christ. They came from different churches but they all had the belief that God is one and so they all need to find their own way to him. They were all definately looking for the truth. Elder Stroud said they may go back a couple of times and bring a member with them.

One cool part of that story is as we were teaching, I am not sure how to explain this. But often as I teach I make mistakes in Russian. I can tell almost before it comes out but I still say it on accident. It happened a couple of times while we were teaching those people. At the end of our part one of them asked how we learned Russian so well. I don't know what they were hearing as I caught many mistakes in my own speaking but it was a testimony to me that the Gift of Tongues is true. I bore testimony of the Gift of Tongues and talked about how the apostles experienced it in the New Testament. They all agreed. It was really cool.

Well I just wanted to end with an Easter Testimony. I know that Easter was last week and here they celebrate it in May. But I know that Christ lives. I know that he came here to atone for our sins. I know that He has felt everything we have felt and will feel in this life. I know He loves us no matter what we do. He is just waiting to help us. As I have served thus far I have really strengthened my testimony of His earthly ministry. That is our message to the world. That Christ lives still and that through Him and the saving ordinances that he has set up we can be made clean and return to our Heavenly Father. This is such a glorious message.

Well I love you all.

Love Elder Quinn

Vova received the Melchezidek priesthood - so much fun to go to Illichovsk!

Sent: Monday, April 01, 2013 4:14 AM

Hey everyone thanks for the letters from dad, mom, and Natalie. I hope you all had a nice spring vacation. A quick shout out of thanks to everyone who has been helping me with housing and classes for BYU. It is so nice to not have to worry about anything. You are all awesome! also Happy birthday Mom. I can't believe you are 39..... ;)

So this week was awesome. We met with some aweosme people. Two of them S...... and C.... They are younger guys. We contacted C..... about three weeks ago and he said he was having a tough life and that his girl left him and his friends are lame. He was about to walk away when I said "This will help." He stopped and came back. We met with him this past week and he is really searching for the truth. S........ has a similar story, two weeks ago we ran into him on the street and talked to him. At our lesson this week he said at least three times "Something you said interested me." I asked if he wanted to change his life and he said, "Not just change it I want to know if someone is watching over me." We bore sweet testimony to him and the spirit was really strong. Please pray for these people as they both have very difficult schedules and that we will be able to meet with them.

As for I... and V...... we had to drop their dates. I..... has fallen off the earth and hasn't answered his phone. V....... is cool but couldn't come to church this week and we couldn't meet with him all last week because he was in Moscow. But we will be meeting with him this week. It has been so great to be teaching so many prepared people. To answer some questions we have just been contacting a lot lately. We have had a lot of success doing it so we haven't put a ton of effort into other finding methods. Although I have taught Elder Pace to tract and he loves it. He had only gone one time before. Also with the activities with the members. I am going to wait until my wounds from meet the missionary night heal before I start in on anything else... haha but we are trying to work well with the branch council.

Yesterday I went down to Illichovsk. It was so much fun to go down there. I went down to be there when Vova received the Melchezidek priesthood. It was so much fun to see all of the members at once. They are all so awesome. Also the missionaries there had a baptism on Saturday so the man received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was so much fun to be there when Vova got the Priesthood. He is awesome. 

Well that was my week. I love you all a ton.

Love Elder Quinn

I love the scriptures - busy teaching investigators

Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 4:37 AM

Hey everyone thanks so much for the letters. I got a lot today. Dad, mom, Melissa, Justin, Natalie, Hannah, and Grandma Quinn. Your letters are great thank you so much for the updates and encouragement. I am so happy to hear things are going well. Sounds like some of you are enjoying some warm weather. Here in Odessa it was pretty cold this week. It was really wind on Saturday and it even brought a couple of large trees down near our apartment. I heard in Kiev they got 2-3 feet of snow and all of the ground transportation was shut down. They even had to cancel church. Hopefully it warms up soon. 

So this letter may not be really long. I have been informed I should spend some time today looking at classes for BYU I will send another Email to dad, mom, and Natalie maybe the three of you can work together to work it all out. Thanks a lot for this. You have all done a ton for me already. 

This week in the mission we began a Book of Mormon read. We started this week and will be ending at the end of next transfer. It will be a great opportuinty to begin reading the Book of Mormon again from the start. I have truely grown a huge love for the scriptures specifically the Book of Mormon. It is truly an amazing book. I love being able to tell people about it and helping them to strengthen their faith in Christ and who He is. 

As for investigators this week. We had a great week of meeting with people. One day I don't think Elder Pace and I even left the church. It has really caused us to step up on our planning and scheduling which is really cool. All of the lessons went pretty well. V...... is strugling with accepting the doctrine in the Plan of Salvation. We will just have to go over it again. He knows Joseph Smith was a Prophet so we just need to make that connection with him. I..... is doing well. He read on the internet some stuff about our church. He asked a lot of good questions. They weren't accusing questions he just wanted to know. We answerd all of them and he seemed happy with the answers. We didn't set dates with everyone we were hoping but that just means this week we will. I am really excited for this week as we continue to help all of these people accept the Gospel. 

Sorry again for the short letter. I love you all.

Love Elder Quinn

Technical Difficulties

Hello,   I am sorry I am behind in Elder Quinn's (Chase) missionary blog.  An email of mine that was also connected to this blog kept getting hacked into, so I had to close that email.   Since it was connected to this blog  I couldn't figure out how to get the blog back up and working.   After trying many things, I finally asked my daughter.  She told me what to do and Yea!  I am happy because I can now add posts to it again.  Like a lot of posts!!  :)   Thanks for reading this now and then.

Elder Quinn's mom - Elaine