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

Missionary Life for Elder Quinn

study time 

brainstorming 

budgeting 

what a clean frig - proud of you boys 

front room

kitchen 

tidy bedroom - your mom is so proud 

which is your favorite cooking mit?

out and about 

hello

how did this car get here?

transportation for us

hello

hello 

memorial 

memorial

our new tree

more trees

loving service

Is this whole deep enough?

The best part of missionary work!!

A happy day