"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