11/4/13

Hey everyone. This week was just crazy again. The mission got 22 new missionaries and we`re getting 31 in two days so we`re just slammed with a billion things to do, but this last week was cool because we had a dinner and we made Tacos with Gustavo and Matias the kids that got baptzed a few weeks ago, and we had 3 more baptisms on saturday!!! It was so awesome. The familia ayala, i`ll send pics when you gusy get here because I forgot my cord and stuff, so you`ll see all the pics of the last four weeks all at once. We talked with her last night and she has had almost all of her friends abandon her for getting baptized and she`s had such a hard time, but she said I promise to never abandon the church. I know what you have taught me is true and I know that I will not be happy if I don`t go to the church and learn about the gospel.... Wow how amazing is that? I am so excited for you mom and dad to meet her. She`s so excited to meet you. I haven`t told ANYONE here that I was finishing the mission yet, until yesterday in Fast and Testimony meeting I got up and bore my testimony and about half way through I said that this was my last sunday as a normal missionary, and as I lookeda round at all the shocked faces I almost started crying as I looked over at the mom of Gustavo and Matias as she started to cry, and then I looked over at a few other converts and they started to cry as well, and sheesh that was awful. But I was able to feel really comforted to know that I have been able to do my very very very best, and not regret anything.  It was really weird, because by not telling anyone this whole time, it was almost like I was tricking myself too haha, and it finally hit me last night that i`m basically done... it was a really wierd feeling of happy, sad, hope, and excitement, and just all the things you can imagine. We had interviews with Presidente on Saturday and as I walked in he basically just said, "Elder, i`m gonna see you in like a week, so we`re gonna make this quick" and he started laughing and then I started Laughing, so it helped a little to know that everything is gonna be okay. We are hoping to have a few more baptisms this week too, so i`m excited! I`m really excited for all these changes to happen, it`s like my whole life is going ot change again.  I can`t wait to see you all! Have a great week!

11/4/13

Hey everyone. This week was just crazy again. The mission got 22 new missionaries and we`re getting 31 in two days so we`re just slammed with a billion things to do, but this last week was cool because we had a dinner and we made Tacos with Gustavo and Matias the kids that got baptzed a few weeks ago, and we had 3 more baptisms on saturday!!! It was so awesome. The familia ayala, i`ll send pics when you gusy get here because I forgot my cord and stuff, so you`ll see all the pics of the last four weeks all at once. We talked with her last night and she has had almost all of her friends abandon her for getting baptized and she`s had such a hard time, but she said I promise to never abandon the church. I know what you have taught me is true and I know that I will not be happy if I don`t go to the church and learn about the gospel.... Wow how amazing is that? I am so excited for you mom and dad to meet her. She`s so excited to meet you. I haven`t told ANYONE here that I was finishing the mission yet, until yesterday in Fast and Testimony meeting I got up and bore my testimony and about half way through I said that this was my last sunday as a normal missionary, and as I lookeda round at all the shocked faces I almost started crying as I looked over at the mom of Gustavo and Matias as she started to cry, and then I looked over at a few other converts and they started to cry as well, and sheesh that was awful. But I was able to feel really comforted to know that I have been able to do my very very very best, and not regret anything.  It was really weird, because by not telling anyone this whole time, it was almost like I was tricking myself too haha, and it finally hit me last night that i`m basically done... it was a really wierd feeling of happy, sad, hope, and excitement, and just all the things you can imagine. We had interviews with Presidente on Saturday and as I walked in he basically just said, "Elder, i`m gonna see you in like a week, so we`re gonna make this quick" and he started laughing and then I started Laughing, so it helped a little to know that everything is gonna be okay. We are hoping to have a few more baptisms this week too, so i`m excited! I`m really excited for all these changes to happen, it`s like my whole life is going ot change again.  I can`t wait to see you all! Have a great week!

10/29/13

Thank You to all that are and have been reading Quynn's mission blog.  We are going to get him next Tuesday and pick him up from the mission home on Tuesday the 7th.

For all of you that would like to come, his homecoming is November 24th at 11:00 am
13700 S 6400 W at the stake center.

Please read his last entry as it is his last "work week"!

And to all you missionary  moms...two years does come to an end!

10/28/13

Pretty eventful week! 

On wednesday we got a text message from the family that was going to get baptized last week and it said that the mom had gotten in a fight and didn`t want us to come back or anything to do with the church... so that was a pretty crappy thing, but we went on Friday after she had calmed down, and after she had rejected us for that day and thursday as well, and we had one of the most intense lessons i`ve ever had in my mission. The spirit was so strong as we both testified, and really looked for what she needed to hear, and it was so intense how the spirit popped into our heads exactly what she needed. It was incredible and a huge experience for me and Elder Escorcia. It was cool because in conference I remember Uchtdorfs talk about how sometimes we need to just look people in the eye and tell them that they CAN do things. So that popped into my head instantly after she was done explaining herself, and after I said that she started to bawl.. It was so awesome... They came to church yesterday the three of them and they`re going to be baptized this nextcoming saturday.. On saturday we had 5 baptisms of the Familia Santander!!!!!!! Man they are so incredible!! I^ll try to upload some pictures. We also had so many members participate that it was an amazing turn out. The entire family came and also many investigators.  We had 7 people yesterday in church as well, so we`re hoping to have another 3-6 baptims this coming saturday if we can work well enough with them.  We were 11 people walking to church yesterday it was awesome. It was like a parade of people. But here in Argentina it`s required to vote so there were a ton of poeple going to vote and it was funny how they all looked at us in our suits walking through the mud.  I also did a baptismal interview for a lesbian this week, which was pretty awesome to tell the truth. To watch someone go through somethign so difficult in their life, but through our Savior she was able to change completely and now is going to be baptized.  We did divisions a lot this week too which was fun, but i`ve got like 1000 mosquito bites because it`s been so humid.  Something funny this week was on tuesday night we were walking back to our pensh, and a girl without a lot of clothes passed us as we all passed a group of teenage punks that were howling and whisling at her, and as we passed, I looked at the kids and said "ah, Gracias!" (as if they were whisling at me) and then all the kids started laughing their heads off at the one who was yelling and whisling the most and they were like "ahh gay gay!!" laughing at their friend haha, it was awesome.  But I am super stoked for this week, we`re gonna just kill it! My last working week here in the mission... I never thought it`d come... But we have 22 new missionaries coming to the mission this wendesday and 22 the next wednesday  so it`s gonna be SUPER hectic for all the zone leaders getting their missionaries where they need to be, so please pray for all of us and for the familia Santander and the familia Ayala! I love you all thank you so much! 

10/21/13

Hey I don`t have anymore time today, but i`ll just recap really quick because we had a ton of zone leader things to do, but just know that WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!!! IT`S POSSIBLE!!! Phillipians 4¨13. just do hard things!

The Familia Santander is doing great, and we were able to have 2 more baptisms this last week, so that was really exciting! The two little kids are 9 and 10 and i`ll send pics next week. They asked when their placks would arrive to start working with us in the street haha. I love them so much they`re awesome. Their mom is now coming to church as well, which is awesome so we just gotta get them married and baptize their dad as well!  The other day I fell runnign because of all the mud in the morning, so my hand is all messed up but it`s all good.  I`m letting my comp feel a litlte more heat of being a zone leader, so that`s been a lot of fun to watch him progress.  Yesterday they invited us to an asado and I eat just a rediculous amount... they just kept serving and serving and serving, and the asado here is just pure pure pure meat. It was awesome but a lot of food... haha, but it was really cool because here it`s a big deal the person that gets to cut the meat, and the dad just looks at me, and gives me the knife and says "corte usted" which was awesome.  Its a huge honer to be able to cut the meat after it`s done cooking, so that was really cool.. Other than that we expect quite a few more baptisms this weekend so please pray for Alejandra, Milagros, Juan, Natalia, Yamil, Estefanìa, and Cinthia!! They all have a baptismal date for this weekend and they`ve all been to church and are super excited, so please pray for them! I love you all thank for everything!! I`m doig great! It`s getting super hot here, so start getting prepared mom and dad!

10/14/13

This week we had zone leader councel on monday, tuesday we had our zone training to train our missionaries, and wednesday for a huge lack of sleep since saturday night not getting sleep from the priesthood meeting and having to wake up at 3 am on monday to travel to Resistencia I think my body was just needing a break, and Wednesday I got a bad fever and it was really humid and muggy from all the rain, so that was rough being in the pension, but I feel great now and doing great again.  I`m finishing the new testament right now and i`m super amazed with how many attributes i`m finding of a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and i`m writing them all down. I`ve also been really surprised with how many times it mentions the importance of believing.  I am putting it into practicfe because a little earlier in my mission I put a really high goal for baptisms to have by the time I finished, and I am really close, and with the people we have right now I know we can hit it, so i`m doing my very best, thanks for your prayers! Somethign important I learned this week was to help others.... Romans 15:1-2. and nothing separates us from the love of our Heavenly Father Romans 8:38-39 , some of my favorite scripts now.  On saturday we had to paint the pension getting ready for the elders to move and today we spent our whole p-day helping the sister missionaries move into their new pension, which is in a members house right acrosst he street from us. It was  alittle rough using our whole day for them but i know it`s worth it... We are finally in our pension good now, and we cleaned like crazy. Bleaching everything and painting, and it`s super nice now. Just like new and it`s really gonna help be more tranquilo and have the spirit more.  We found the Familia Ayala this week, and they came to church along with the others that are gonna get baptized this next weekend, so we are expecting some more baptisms!!! Tons of rain this week... Muddier than goodness, but it`s been fun.  The other day we had to cancel our lunch to take the sisters some boots and the elders umbrellas because they didn`t have any, so i`m learning a lot of humility and not being frustrated with things that happen, so it`s been a great lesson. Thanks for all you do and I hope you have a great week!!

10/8/13

This was a good week.. but absolutely nuts.... We had 2 baptisms! But it was crazy because the kid the whole week kept saying no, yes, no, yes, no, and then like 1 day before his baptism decided to get baptized, so we went to his house to do the interview, and the freaking kid left town for the night! So that was nuts, and we had to do the interview right before the baptism... that was a little crazy, but an adventure.  The familia Santander is doing really good, they are really excited and we`ve been able to help them decide to get married, we just gotta help with the paperwork now to get married! So that`ll be fun. COnference was pretty good!! It was really rought beause we had to run around going from the stake center to our area a half hour away and we had to worry about the zone and their investigators, so it wasn`t the most enjoyable thing every due to that. But it was really good. I was able to watch in english too which was good.  Tatiana is doing well, the girl that got baptized last week. She gave us like 10 references to her friends so that is awesome, we`re super excited for that. Yesterday I had my last zone leader councel in Resistencia which was really good, but sad as well. I had to say goodbye to a lot of really good elders and hermanas that I probably won`t see again... so that was rough. It was really cool though to have the very best numbers out of all the zones. that hadn`t ever happened to me yet, so that was really cool to go out with a bang! We were super stoked about that. We are doing really well, and i`m already out of time so i`ll have to say the rest next week, but thanks for everything. Please pray for la familia santander and dayana y daniela y gustavo y matias. These are the people that are progressing right now, so we`re really excited and we hope to have some more baptisms this next week! i love you all thanks for evreything!! 

Sept 30, 2013

Just to give you an update on what the mission is like for me right now... It`s getting really hot, but it`s been raining quite a bit lately, so luckily the true heat hasn`t gotten to us. I`m in an area that`s a little poorer, so we eat a lot of noodles, with chicken or meat, but it`s super good anyways. I love the food here. I live with 3 columbians so that`s pretty exciting. My area isn`t huge, it`s actually the smallest of all my areas, so we don`t walk AS much, but we still walk a ton, and we`re always on the move. My companion is Elder Escorcia, and we are currently in a ward, not a branch like almost all my other areas. The members are really awesoem, and they help us a ton, and are super willing to do anything. The zone is doing really well. Right now we are really pushing to be the best zone in the mission, and we`ve got councel this monday so we`ll see if our numbers are hitting our goal! We just wanna kill it. Health wise i`m doing good! We are running again in the morning, because the other elder I live with also likes to run, so i`m running every morning about 25 minutes, and that`s helping a lot to keep the stress levels down. But i`m enjoying the heck out of the mission now. I love being able to see progress in our area, and in the zone. That`s the hardest thing i`ve seen being a zone leader, is that it`s already difficult running your own area, and when they give you 5 other areas to look after on top of that it gets a little hectic, but I absolutely love it. There is ALWAYS something to do. The other day an elder forgot his documents when he went to renew his visa, so we had to run around finding a scanner and stuff, on saturday one area had an emergency baptism, so we had to travel to do their baptismal interview, also last week one of the sister missionaries got pretty sick, so we had to travel and give her a blessing, just things like that, plus divisions weekly with the elders... It`s awesome! Each night we call all the areas and verify with them and figure out what we can do and give them some thigns to help them out. It was a little wierd calling Sister missionaries at first, but it`s normal now. It felt wrong, like I was sinning by talking to them haha, but it`s all good now, I love everything and i`m just doing great! Anything else you`d like to know?   Love you all!

Hey Everyone. Pretty awesome week. Started off a little rough because my companion from Mexico got sent to Resistencia, and we were like best friends, so that was really hard, but I got a new companion that`s from Columbia! I actually already knew him from Villa Angela. His name is Elder Escorcia. He was working in the other part of the city so we saw eachother all the time. He`s SUPER calm and I haven`t heard him raise his voice even one time, not even being excited haha, but he`s awesome. Which means now I live with 3 columbians, and there is another columbian Sister in our Zone, that goes to our ward, and her companion is from the United States, from Sandy, but her mom is from Columbia and her dad is from Guatemala, so she`s pretty much Latina and also columbian... So my life is pretty much columbianified right now! It`s pretty fun. But I can`t believe i`m starting my last transfer. It doesn`t seem real.  This week was super successful for us. It started off last monday after P`day, we found a family that lives right next door to Tatiana, our investigator, who GOT BAPTIZED on Saturday! It was so aweosme. I don`t know if i`ve told you about her, but we found her about 3 weeks ago, by asking people if there was anyone they knew that had just ahd a baby, and three different people guided us to her house, so we went and she`s 18, and we were in divisions actually with another kid from California, so i`m pretty sure she only let us sit down because we both had blue and green eyes, and she was pretty stunned, (we call those types of girls snakes) but anyways she had a billion problems in her life, and she has changed completely. Before in her life, she did drugs, drank, was with a different guy each day, and her family is a wreck, but since we`ve taught her in teh last 3 weeks, she`s stopped smoking, stopped drinking, stopped drugs, and she actually had to leave her boyfriend, who she had been with for a few years already, all to get baptized.... She`s so freaking sick! We couldn`t believe how much she had changed, and she was so excited to get baptized. she even went against her family because they didn`t want her to get bapitized. With ALL the odds in the world going against her, she did was the Lord asked, and she`s going to be sooo blessed, and I am so surprised by her example.  

This week was awesome, We did 5 different baptismal interviews, with some of the coolest people ever, and we were able to find some of the coolest people ever too. On saturday we found 2 more families, and yesterday in church we had 12 investigators! I couldn`t believe it. We were super blessed. And on top of that it was sprinkling rain, and when it even looks like its going to rain here in Argentina, nobody does ANYTHING. Everyone just stays in their house, because there is so much mud, so we truly saw miracles this week.  Laura and her kid are progressing amazingly and she has already comitted strongly to be baptized this weekend. We went to her house two days ago, did all the baptismal interview questions, and we finished and she said... chicos... I`m ready to be baptized! Wow how awesome is that! The spirit is so powerful. That`s the biggest thing i`ve learned this week. I have also been reading a lot in acts, when the spirit for the first time in the world began to work like it does now a days, and it`s amazing to see how the apostles were able to have to much success just because of the spirit. I think truly as far as numbers go, they probable converted more poeple than Jesus Christ because of the strength of the spirit. I am so amazed each time.  One of the famlies we found on Saturday is the Family Santander, and we found them by pure miracle, and we sat down, got to know them really well, and said they`d like to go to church, but they live SUPER far, so we were a little worried, but we woke up super early yesterday and passed by each of our investigators and families, and at the end went by them, and we arrived to the boyfriend of the mom, which we hadn`t even met yet, and he said, "what do you guys need?"    "We`re just here to go to church with the family, we met them yesterday and they said they`d go to church with us....."             "oh, okay let me get them" and he left, and then the little girl invited us in, and each of them were still sleeping, one of the little girls had gotten a little sick, and they said "sorry we`re not going to be able to go today" and the only thing I could think of was to say "oh, but we actually already called a taxi, and it`s on it`s way, so just get ready" and as it was coming out I thought... we didn`t call a taxi? And the mom just said "oh, serious? okay... get ready kids!" and even the dad got ready and they all came! All seven of us crammed into a TINY little car and went to church ahhaha. But we visited them last night to see how they liked church, we get there, she invites us into her house, which nobody ever does here, and she said, yeah me and my boyfriend already want to get married to get baptized, and we want all our kids to get baptized too, also, would you like to come eat with us next sunday?.......... WHAT?! How sick is that?! THey are super humble, with a tiny little house, but they`re so awesome I already love them.. I really really really hope they keep progressing. So we`re super excited for them!! Please pray for each of them. The other family we have is the family Monzòn. and they are two girls, Diana, and Daniela, and they are SUPER intelligent. Yesterday they LOVED church, and Diana the older one that`s 13 asks us "Did sin exist before we came to earth?" What 13 year old thinks of a question like that?? They are both super awesome, super excited and everything. But we`re super blessed, and we wouldn`t have been able to see any of this if it weren`t for a miracle. Please pray for each of them and we are going to be working super hard and diligently to help as many of them as we can. I have a big goal for my last transfer, and I know that i`m going to be able to hit it if we just keep working as hard as we can. I don`t know that i`ve ever worked as hard as I am right now, with our area and with the zone as well, so we`re super excited and super ready to just kill it this transfer.  I`m going down swinging like crazy!! This next week we`ve got Zone Leader Councel, so i`ll write you on Tuesday, and a member promised to make us cow tongue, so that`s gonna be cool. But please keep them in your prayers (Laura, Manuel, Sofia, The Familia Santander, The Familia Monzòn, The Familia Franco, and Edgardo, and Nico), and I`m so thankful for each of you. I love you all, have a great week!

Sept 23, 2013

Sounds like everyone is doing really well. Those pictures are fantastic, sounds like it`ll be a cool place to go to when I get back. Today I am starting my last transfer in the mission, and it`s so crazy. To be honest I absolutely hate it, but ya just gotta do what you gotta do! This week was really cool, and a huge experience in leadership and helping others. I have learned that Good leaders will do anything and everything for those that they lead, but the greatest leaders will teach and show those they lead what they can do to be able to do it themselves correctly. That`s somethign ì`ve learned this week, and something i`m proud to be able to say i`m trying my hardest to do. We did divisions and I went with the intentions to just do the absolute best I could and to just show the Elder how things are done, but I realized it doesn`t help if I go and find 12 new people without showing him how to do it himself. THe concept of giving someone a fish, or giving them a fishing pole and showing them how to use it. It was really cool to learn that even more this week, and we`ve seen a lot of big changes in the zone because of it. I`m still training Elder Perez to be a great zone leader so that`s somethign I`m glad i`ve been able to show him. I love that stinky beaner so much. (don`t worry it`s not racist, he says that he admits that he`s a stinky beaner, and it`s even more hilarious when he says it in his mexican accent) plus we`re learning even more english every day whch is fun. We`re enjoying every single moment, and it`s just a blast.  It rained yesterday and its muddier than goodness. every single step you have to rip your leg out of the mud and hope it doesn`t soak through the bottom. My one pair of shoes already has a huge hole in the bottom, so it`s not the funnest to have to wear those. But i`m doing great! We did 5 baptismal interviews, and I love them so much. I love having someone tell me their testimony and to just see them light up when they begin to say how much they`ve changed. I`ts my favorite part ever.  A few nights ago some of the sister missionaries in the zone forgot their key in the church, and we had to run around way past the time that we had to be in the pension trying to find it and give it to them, so that was a crazy adventure, but just another part I love about being a ZL.  A few of the peopel we`re teaching haven`t been able to get permission from their parents to get baptized which is super rough on me, because they`ve got great friends to go to church with, they`re willing to go to church, and they usually go, but we`re working with them.  The Familia Arenas is so awesome. The mom was really sick and super down yesterday, but we went and taught her and just went really excited and encouraged her a lot, and she was so happy. It`s amazing to see her conversion already,a nd we are hoping she can get baptised next week.  This week we`re still teaching Tatiana, she has 18 years and she`s awesome. She`s that girl we found a few weeks ago, and she`s doig great, and we`re going to do the best to get her baptized this week. But thanks for all your prayers and everything. I loev you all and hope all is well!! Que estèn muy bien todos!!

Sept 16,2013

Sept 16

Como están todos?!

This week was absolutely awesome... The whole week it was actually getting really really hot here already, but even with that we kept working like crazy, and we found A TON of amazing people. Yesterday in church we had 8 investigators.... It was AWESOME. We woke up super early yesterday morning because we needed to pass by each of them before church, and a few live really far, but it was so worth it. There were actually so many that we needed to go wake up and thigns that we decided to do divisions with some Priests, and it got so crazy that only my companion had a cell phone, so i`m like waking up half of Formosa and sending them to church with messages to my companion so that he called me and things, and I had to call taxis to come and pick people up, and then I had to send other families with members. It was like a huge adventure from a movie. It was so awesome. I was super excited.  It was so much fun. I also had to give a talk yesterday in church, and it was really really good. I was so excited for having so many people in church that I just stood up, and started smiling, and almost laughing  trying to start my talk because I was just so happy, which made everyone else start smiling and giggling a little and it was pretty funny. A good way to start a talk.  But this week was cool, we did divisions with the Assistants, and it was cool because I got to go with the Elder that we did divisions with in Resistencia when I was a zone leader there, so we talked a lot about the mission, because he`s finishing in 2 weeks, and we have been through a lot together, so that was fun, and it was super sick because of those 8 people that went to church, 4 of them we found toghether in those divisions. We should be having a few baptisms this weekend so we`re excited about that. Please pray for Alejandro, and Juan, and the Familia Arenas, and Sofia. We are teaching a lot of people right now and we`re super blessed. We are finally seeing the results for all of our crazy days opening the zone and running around helping all the Hermanas missionaries and things, which is a huge turn around. Me and my companion Elder Perez are getting along super good. He`s definitely one of my favorites. We are constantly laughing, and we just have fun together, and enjoying everything which is awesome. I really hope he kills me. He killed Elder Weight, my companion in Resistencia when we were Zone Leaders there, so that would just be awesome. But ever monday we are doing what we did in Resi too, the Momento de Exito, where we do a conference call with the zone and each area has a few minutes to tell a successful story from teh week, and everyone can cheer and get all excited. It helps us to be united as a zone which is awesome.  But thanks for everything, I hope everyone is good. I`m doing great, it`s getting hot, so i`m getting the nice neck farmers tan again, so that`s awesome. But things are great, and we`re super excited! We`ve got transfers in 2 weeks so we`ll see what happens with my comp. I hope I just can finish here, I love this area so much.  Oh and a few days ago, the peple from the city came to spray the area for mosquitos because here the mosquitos have dengue and things, and it`s pretty nuts, and the dude has a big ghost busters machine thing, so as he was leaving we ran and chased him down and I asked him to use it, and I sent a picture, It was pretty sick! Ghost Busters! Haha but I love you all, have a great week!

September 10, 2013

Sept 10

Hey everyone! Pretty intense week getting the zone up and running with all these new missionaries and such: Almost all of them are coming from new missions and other existing missions, so they`ve adopted a lot of habits that just don`t have success here, but Italia Norte es bastante capo ch (my area is called Italia Norte). I really like it. The members are really awesome and we`re really doing a lot to change the new zone. We`re focusing a lot on the Spirit, and how we need to be guided. The mission seems to have lost a lot of focus on the spirit with all the new missionaries trying to do their own things from other missions and such, so we`re really striving to get focused again on what we need to be doing, and to remember that it`s the lord`s work, not ours.I want you to know that I have gained such a strong testimony in the last two weeks especially to know that the Lord really does put us where we need to go. I have gained a strong testimony to know that the Lord needed me to learn certain things i`ve learned, so don`t worry about anything, I know the Lord has each of you in mind, and whatever happens is what HE needs for you. Just trust him. Always look for guidance by the spirit, I know that he will answer us if you just ask him in prayer.I found out that sometimes the spirit is kinda like those old eight balls that you shake up and it`s got a few answers as the things floats to the top, we must go to the Lord with a specific answer or specific question, and ask him specifically so that he can answer specifically. I hope this helps, I felt like I needed to share it with someone, so I hope that you can all put it into practice! This week President Heyman called all the Formosa Zone Leaders together and we had one of the coolest personal lessons i`ve ever heard in my life. He talked about how faith is knowing something will happen and just doing it. And how Faith is a principle of the God`s. He got us all so focused on the spirit and it was so awesome. Yesterday me and my companion had to go to Resistencia for our Zone COuncel which was AWESEOME to visit Res-town again after not being there for so long. I also heard that my converts in Resistencia, Guillermo and Viviana, the ones that got married, well they were putting a kiosk in their house (a little store with all the little treats and things... there are kiosks all over here, just about every block) and they asked me what they should name it while I was still there, and I was just joking a little and said, Name it Kiosk Nephi... and my old companion that is still there yesterday says, hey Elder Allsup... Guess what Guillermo called his kiosk??? ANd I had totally forgotten, so I just said I have no idea.... then he tells me, He named it Nephi just like you said! Haha how cool is that!!! But anyways I am enjoying the mission more than almost any other time. Thigns are going pretty well, adn we`re finding great people. We found an awesome family that came to church, the Familia Medina and they are progressing really well. We are seeing the spirit change their Lives. I love you all have a wonderful week!!! 

Sept 2, 2013

Pretty crazy week to be honest... Monday my companion got bit by his first dog! That was pretty funny... But then we got some crazy news this last tuesday! So me and my kid were doing great, and to be honest I had really thought I was going to finish the mission in my last area, but I got a call from the Zone Leaders at like 9:20 Tuesday night and they said I was being emergency transfered because like 25 new missionaries had come mid transfer for their visas, and they said I was going to be a zone leader again, opening an entire new zone called Formosa 3! To be honest we both thought of that movie The Rookie, where the dad like retires and then gets called back into action... I think that`s what the movie is called... and it`s the exact same area where Elder Weight died, my companion in Resistencia when we were Zone Leaders before. He died here, and I have the companion that killed him, Elder Perez, he`s a "stinky beaner" as he says. (Mexican) Haha but he`s awesome, and we get along super good. I love the kid already. It`s pretty nuts. We have the youngest zone in the mission now. There isn`t one person that has more than 9 months. My companion is the oldest other than me, and he`s only got like 9 months. All the rest have 7 months or less. We also have 2 companionships of Hermanas, and they are really cool too, so that`s a big relief.  But I already love it, and we`re doing good.  I love it a ton here. It was hard to leave my kid though in my last area. Me and him were really good friends, but it`s been really interesting to see how all of this needed to happen, and how I learned so many crucial things my last few weeks there, to help prepare me for this new area and new calling. It`s been really awesome.  My comp hasn`t ever been a ZL before, so that`s been fun training him.  But i`m really excited, and really humbled so please remember me in your prayers! Today we spent all morning cleaning like crazy and just moving everything around. We also live with 2 Columbians right now and they are so hilarious. Seriously they remind me exactly of those two Transformers in Transformers 2 I think, the red and green one? I`m pretty sure that`s the movie... But you get the picture. I really am loving my mission again. Not that I didn`t before, but I forgot how much I love talking with allt he Elders and Hermanas every night, and answering their calls, and doing all the things they need. I love being super busy again in every moment. But it`s starting to get really hot here, so i`m getting used to that already. But it`s gonna be a great adventure, and i`m super excited! Hope all is doing well!! Love you all!!  

8/26/13

But this week was a little normal, nothing crazy! We had divisions and I went to the Zone Leader`s area, and the zone leader I was with got SUPER sick, so I just stayed in the pension as he slept so that was kinda wierd. But I ate Pizza in  cone which was pretty different, but really good.  We played basketball again with teh youth of the branch. I encourage everyone to read 3 Nephi 7:18-22 and it`s so cool to know that WE know by the same exact power as the old prophets. Even Joseph smith didn`t get his testimony by seeing God and Jesus... But by the spirit.  3 Nephi 6:13-147 True conversion attributes. Cristian didnt get baptized, and to be honest we can`t find him, so that`s a little rough. He just like disappeared from his house, but we had 2 ladies come to church yesterday, some references from some members, so we`re super excited about that! I love you all thanks for everything!! Hope you like the pictures ! 

8/19/2013

First photo: We cleaned out the baptismal font so we did some service for the chapel and we cleaned out a closet that was just hidious with old books and liahonas and things, and we found this HUGE BIBLE!!! It`s sweet. I wanted to keep it but felt bad, so we left it in the church hoping that we find someone that can`t read very little letters.

Second: Baptism of Javier Corvalan, and his family that we reactivated and are working on getting married!!

My camera died, so next week I`ll send lots of pictures, and the ones that weren`t able to be sent the last 2 weeks. Just to start out, something really cool that might help everyone is something I did yesterday in my studies. SIt down, and just start to think in the last year, how you have grown and changed. Take some time to reflect on how you have changed, what happened, and what you remember. Ponder on a few of the thigns that stand out to you most, and how you learned important things in certain circumstances.  Just sit and ponder, and WRITE it down as it comes to youI did it, and it was really cool to be able to see what experiences stood out to me most, and how i`ve grown as a person. 

This week was a little struggler for me, but just like always, it`s for our own good, and I learned and grew as a person.  We have been helping Cristian, the 16 year old kid we found looking for a less active family, and for some reason he just kind of stopped being excited to get baptized, which was really hard for me because he was progressing so well, even going to seminary and things, and we are still working with him. He came to church again so we`re still really excited, but we are going to see if we can`t baptize him this weekend. PLEASE pray for him, Remember him in your prayers.  We had transfers and nothing happened, so me and Elder Creer are together another 6 weeks, so we`re excited. I love this area a lot. THe members are so awesome. We have been helping a lot of the members that didn`t really get a hwole lot of visits because the city is so big, and we have been working with the Garcia family, and on thursday they actually gave us a whole pasta frola! It`s a huge dessert here and it`s the size of a large pizza in teh states, and it`s amazing. It is my absolute favorite dessert here, and the Hermana heard me I guess at lunch one time, so they decided to make us one, and that was a really cool experience for us.  My comp got an ingrown toe and tried to take it out himself, and of course just totally messed it up and it got way infected, so we`ve had to walk a little slower these last few days haha. The other day a member took us to one of her references, and we had a really powerful lesson with them. They are 3 people, Vanessa the mom, Diego the son of 17 years, and Ceci the daughter of 22 years and they seem like they are really prepared. Diego already said he`d go to seminary and things, so we`re excited about them, please pray for them too.  We`ve got quite a few baptisms lined up for the next few weeks so we`re really excited! Yesterday we asked permision to play basketball with all the youth of the branch, and we went ot play for a few hours, and it was a lot of fun to go play with them and for them to see a different side of us.  But we`re doing good. It`s finally warming up and getting hot again, so that`s good. But other than that it`s great. I really had a lot of spiritual experiences this week. I want everyone to know the reality, and truthfulness of the plan of salvation. Jesus Christ took part in EVERY single aspect, and he effected each part. I am so greatful for him and what he`s done in my life. He truly is our Savior. I finished reading Jesus the Christ and the book is absolutely amazing. I learned so much and it made me appreciate my Savior even more. I hope everyone can take a few minutes to really read more about the Savior and his life, and understand what it really is he did for us. 

I love each of you, thank you so much for your prayers and for your support. I hope all is well, and that eveyroen has a great week!! 

8/12/13

Pretty eventful week! We had a baptism!! I hope you can open the photos! If not let me know and i`ll go to a different computer next week and send you all the picutres from the last two weeks. But earlier in the week Elder Creer is still getting used to the food, well not really the food, more the quantity of food. So he actually threw up 2 different times after lunch because of how much we ate haha, so that was pretty nuts.  We had a ton of new people this week and a ton of lessons, which has been awesome. I`ve never just gone and done so much work in my whole mission. We`re like running to charlas it feels like, which is awesome. The youth of the branch are getting super excited too, becaues we`ve been asking them to come with us pretty much every single day we have a different youth coming with us, and they are loving it. I love this place so much... It reminds me of Alma 17:23... Look it up!  But we had Javier`s baptism, and it was great. We made sugar cookies to let everyone try and they all loved them with the frosting and stuff, so that was fun to do something differnt for them.  Yesterday that other kid we`re teaching came to church again, so we`re hoping he`ll get baptized this weekend and have back to back baptisms!! Wooo! But on Wednesday after our day, walking back to the pension there is a famous ice cream place that had a deal of 3 liters of icecream for like 40$ pesos no mas! so of course we bought it, and the girl working gave us free coupons for a free icecream cake, so we got 5.5 pounds of icecream for like 8 bucks, and my companion is the one who bought all that, so as we were walking out I just couldn`t resist, and I bought it too, and we ate basically all of it. So since wednesday we have eaten a total of 11 pounds of icecream between the two of us.... Pretty nuts. But I love it. We`ve been running in the morning too which is awesome, and some day swe go play basketball at a school near our pension, but it`s just freezing sometimes int eh morning. But i`m about to finish Jesus the Christ too. Im about 1 and a half hours away from finishing it, and i`m super stoked, I love that book so much.  But everything is going great, and we are just enjoying this amazing place so much, and wokring our guts out. I hope the pictures work! Thanks for everything. I wrote Tean and it is so wierd thinking that we`re doing the exact same thing everyday! I love you all, have a great week! 

First photo: We cleaned out the baptismal font so we did some service for the chapel and we cleaned out a closet that was just hidious with old books and liahonas and things, and we found this HUGE BIBLE!!! It`s sweet. I wanted to keep it but felt bad, so we left it in the church hoping that we find someone that can`t read very little letters.

Second: Baptism of Javier Corvalan, and his family that we reactivated and are working on getting married!!

Third: Me and my Comp Elder Creer, and the kid that got baptized and his awesome little brother that I just love to death, that little kid is so hilarious

Fourth Us and Javier coming out of the water

Fifth: Me and Tiago

Sixth: Me and Comp with the free icecream cakes that we got!

Seventh: me and my comp each Finished 5 1/2 pounds of icrecream each since wednesday!

Eight: So much icecream!! Loved it

(Pictures still not downloading...hopefully next week)

August 5 2013

Photo 1, me and my kid trying to warm up a little bit a few nights ago with some home made spaghetti

Photo 2 My kid cut my hair shorter than it`s ever been in my whole life!

Photo 3 Me and the other elders after a District Meeting eating some icecream

Photo 4 Me and my kid made an Asado (BBQ) argentine style but we marinated the meat for the whole night with the potatoes and it turned out delicious, we did it Yesterday, and we made a homemade marinade that`s called Chimichurri that a member taught me, can`t wait to make it for you all

Photo 5 me and him eating Torta Frita (Fried Cake) It`s one of the desserts here that they sell on the street, and it`s amazing with Dulce de Leche (The carmel type sauce that they eat) 

   ( note from mom - pictures did not come through internet so hopefully they will come next week!)

Hey everyone, not a whole lot happened this week, but i`m sending some pictures to you, hope you like them, this internet today is awful so it was hard to choose the pics, hope they turn out okay.  I am just a few days away from finishing Jesus The Christ, the book, and it`s awesome, I love it so much. I`ve learned so much it`s crazy.  We are hoping that Javier gets baptized this weekend, we`re going to go talk to them tonight so we`re way excited, and they came to church yesterday which was really cool, so i`m glad.

The other day getting off one of the busses, I immediately asked a person directions, and as I`m talking the people start freaking out and looking behind me, and I turn around to my companion on the ground, missing a shoe, his backpack all over the place and his agenda all spread out, and I just look at him and he gets up and starts yelling at the bus to open up, and I realized that as he was getting off, the door closed on him, and his shoe stayed inside... hahaha oh man it was one of the funniest things i`ve ever seen. I felt a little bad, but it was kinda like my first night when I fell in the sewer and got all discustingly dirty from all the sewer crap and stuff... A little different, but the life of a new missionary is just hilarious.  I love the mission so much. I hope everyone has a great week! Love you all! 

July 29, 2013

Quynn

7/29

This week has been really fun. On Thursday we went to the capital of this area, and we had interviews with our Mission Presidente, and he taught me a lot, and I really enjoyed my interview with him. I was able to have a really spiritual experience with him. This week me and my companion Elder Creer were praying to find a family, and we prayed to find out who we should go visit, and we were guided to find a family of 9 that is now listening to us, and yesterday one of the kids came to church. It`s been a little miracle for us, and we`re super excited. We are going to keep working with them a lot, and we`re going to try and get the whole family to come to church and everything. Another crazy thing was that yesterday in church the branch presidente stands up after sacrament meeting, and says, "now we will listen to Elder Allsup...." and I just kinda look up at him, and with a puzzled look on my face tapped my chest and gave him a little hint like "are you serious, i`m going to speak now?!" So I grabbed my scriptures and went up on the stand and gave a talk about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and how as members we can be better disciples, and I talked a lot about what the impact of an invitation can have on a person. There are many instances in teh scriptures of entire cities converted just by invitations. For example with Ammon as he converted the king, He just invited him to learn more about God, and the entire nation began to become converted. It turned out really good, and it was a pretty funny experience for my companion to watch. This last week was FREEZING cold. It got down to 3 degrees celsius, which with humidity is absolutely horrific, because coats and things don`t do anything. First time in my life that I honestly wasn`t able to sleep because of the cold. But it`s warming up now so it`s all good.  Plus the washing machine of our neighbor broke, so we`ve been washing everything by hand, which has been fun. I did it the first 8 months of my mission so ìt`s been fun to return. Just takes a while.  I want you to look up on the church website The Work of Salvation, it was a broadcast that went out like a month ago, it`s so AWESOME. Watch it PLEASE!!!! You`ll love it and it`ll help so much! And if you can please start praying for the Peralta family, and Matias Gomez too, that would be awesome, we need some miracles with them.  But thanks for everything, I love you all! Have a great week! Today my companion had to go to Resistencia for a new missionary training so i`m in divisions and we`re enjoying it a ton, it`s with another missionary that leaves here pretty soon, so it`s been fun to talk about all the mission long stuff. But Thanks 

July 15 2013

July 15

Wow, one of the best weeks of my whole mission. So many awesome things happened that I don`t even know where to start. Well, actually I do... At the beginning of the week we found a less active family - Los Corvalan. It`s a Dad of like 30 a mom of like 28, they aren`t married, but they`re both members, and they have 2 kids, Javier y Tiago, and Javier is 9 and isn`t baptized, so we found them, and we had a really awesome lesson with them and got them really excited to come to church and we offered to help them with everything and yesterday all 4 of them came to church and loved it! It really was an incredible experience, and they`re all really exctied. Our plan is to get Javier baptized in a week or two, and that will get them excited to get married, so that they stay active in the church and thigns as a family, and in a few horus we have a family night with them, where we invited some other members to come with us. On saturday our branch presidente asked us to give talks too, but we had no time to prepare, so literally as I was walking up to the pulpit yesterday in church to give my talk, I was still deciding what I was goign to speak on. But literally!! Haha so that was awesome, but to be honest I felt really good about it. I spoke on the Spirit and how he`s the third member of the godhead, and I spoke more about the doctrinal side of the spirit, what his role is and his purpose, and the members really seemed to like it, because it wasn`t so simple that they felt like they knew everything, but wasn`t so complex that they didn`t udnersdtand, and I had a few people actually want copies... So i`m not sure how i`m going to tell them that I didn`t really ahve a plan on what I was going to speak about haha. IT was also really awesome because we`ve been working a ton with the youth of the branch, adn after church we had 4 of them coming up to us asking when they can come with us! So that`s a huge blessing and we`re really trying to get them all excited with soem activities and just by being really cool with them. Just amaizng how the spirit works. But this last week we also were able to have 12 lessons with a member and 16 others, and we found 40 people, and 31 of which have baptismal dates...Which is one of the most successful weeks i`ve ever had. Probably one of the hardest weeks i`ve ever worked as well. It`s amazing here. I love it so much. Me and my son get along great and we work really well together. He`s learning really fast as well. Today I spent the last 5 hours DEEP cleaning the pension. IT`s been about 15 or so years that the pension has been cleaned, so you can imagine. I will send soem before and after pictures next week. I used so much bleach that my hands started to lose the first layer of skin. But it was such a great week.   This week I really was able to feel the spirit very strongly a few different times, and I want to let you know everyone that this really is the true gospel. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet. There is NO way any man could have written the book of mormon. I know that he was called to restore the gospel, and I know that God really does listen to our prayers. I hope everyoen has great plans for their lives and that you are telling your plans to our heavenly father!! I love you all have a great week! There is so much more i`d love to tell you but I don`t have more time!

July 8 2013

July 8

First foto: me, my kid on my left, Elder Butta, and Elder Santoro

Second me and my kid with Presidente and Hermana Heyman

Third: Me with one of my absolute favorite families from my last area, they gave me a ton of stuff when I left

Fourth: Me and Guillermo and Viviana my converts the night before I left

Fifth: Me and A familily that gave me a cake and stuff for my birthday, the little girl even decorated the house and made a big banner and stuff for me, it was really cool

Sixth: Photo of our baptism of the family we reactivated and baptized the little girl

July 1, 2013

Hey Everyone! This week absolutely flew by. Last tuesday we had our zone meeting wtih the whole zone, and directly after we did divisions in a town about 2 hours away, and I was there for 2 days, then I came back and showered and me and Elder Butta had to directly go again to a different town about an hour away to do another baptismal interview, and then later in the week we did 2 more baptismal interviews. We had 5 baptisms in the zone this last week and for the month we hit 10 baptisms,a nd our goal was 9, so we are SUPER excited and we did awesome this month.  COming back from that little town an hour away, the car driver wanted to pick another passenger up to be able to make more money, so he bought a lawn chair and put it in the very very back, so my companion sat in a lawn chair on the way back, going 120 kilometros down the highway all the way home haha I`ve got a pictre I`ll send. It was hilarious. We also were able to have our baptism on friday, of hte little girl of the family that we were able to reactivate, and it turned out GREAT!!  I`ll have to send some pictures next week, I don`t have more time to upload them.  But my birthday was really awesome too. 3 Different families made us a cake and other desserts, and we ate a ton of food. It was crazy, but it was really awesome and really fun.  It was a great birthday weekend and it really helped to just have a great experience in the mission. The mission officially divided on this last friday, so we`re all pretty excited about that. Our mission is just flooding with new missionaries now and A TON of Hermanas. It`s pretty nuts how many we`re receiving every week now. But we have transfers tomorrow so we`ll see what happens. I`ve been here for 4 transfers, but we are still doing really well, so I could easily stay another transfer, so we`ll see! I`m really excited either way!  Today we also went to a really expensive empanada place to celebrate, and we tried 16 different types of empanadas. I`ll send you a picture but it`s definitly a MUST DO when we all come back here at the end of hte year. some of the best food i`ve ever eaten. I`m really excited about it. But we also gave talks yesterday in church about missionary work, and all the members started getting all excited to come hlep us and things, so this week we should be doing some awesome work. But I love you all, thanks for all the help and for everything you do. Thanks for the prayers and thigns. I`ll be sure to send a ton of pictures next week of all these things. Oh and another sad thing is we had to give our kid up for adoption. He left on wednesday and I was still in Divisions. so I didn`t get to say goodbye to him which was sad, but It`s okay. I love that little guy. But I love you all, thanks I hope you have a great week!!!

June 25, 2013

Hey Everyone, pretty crazy week, just like always as a Zone Leader. Our mission is splitting on this friday so it`s been crazy. We recieved even more elders and hermanas this week, and we actually got assigned to train one of them as zone leaders, which is like the first time ever! So that`s been awesome. His name is Elder Quispe from Peru, and he`s awesome, but i`m sad because they just called us like 5 minutes ago and we have to give him up for adoption tomorrow... meaning he`s leaving and the crappy part is, is right now i`m in divisions 2 hours away and I won`t be able to say goodbye to him, so i`m a little sad, but I sent a picture of us three, and next week I`ll send more of us 3. On sunday we made philly cheese steak empanadas, and seriously they were some of the best htings i`ve ever eaten in my life! I can`t wait to make them all for you. We took the great long loved argentine tradition of empanadas and gave it a good ole american twist and the outcome was fantastic. Me and my companion are doing great, and we are seeing a ton of success with the zone, so we`re really happy and doing awesome. This week I learned something really cool. I am loving so much my mission and I was actually a little sad to know it`s going to end in just a few months and I was a little down, but for some reason a few nights ago I just picked up my mini book of mormon in English and just began to read from Jacob and now i`m already almost done with Mosiah, and as I read Mosiah 4 for one of my studies, I really was very comforted to know that we can be just as happy as we are inthe mission, outside fo the mission if we just live th e gospel. I want everyone to just read Mosiah 4 and especially pay attention to verse 12 how it say the world ALWAYS two different times in how we`ll receive so many blessings as we live the principles of the gospel, I was able to feel the spirit and the confirmation of how it`s okay to finish the mission, but luckily i`ve still got a good chunk left and i`m super excited for it. Next week are transfers so we`ll see what happens! We`re all a little sad but really excited about hte mission split, especially me because my other two areas now pertain to the other mission which is a little hard, but it`s gonna be a huge blessing for this part of Argentina. I love you all, and I hope all is well!! Seeya next week!

June 10,2013

June 10 2013

First pic is of the Lemon Pie that our investigator gave us at church

 

Second is of us eating the Pastelitos that a sister gave to us on saturday(we ended up eating 9 each that night.... it was a wreck but they were great) 

 

Third is of the BBQ that some members gave us on saturday, but a pretty different BBQ, what he´s serving there on the plate is actually large intestine. We ate a total of Heart, Kidney, Small intestine, and Large intestine... It was awesome, I loved them all to be honest. I will definitely keep that tradition going!

 

Fourth is of me and Elder Butta eating real american wings that we found some guy who does them, real BBQ hot wings... so good! His wife is actually from South carolina, and it was REALLY weird talking to her in english, especially with her thick southern accent, and she gave us chocolate chip cookies, so that was pretty awesome!

 

Hey Everyone! Pretty awesome week! On saturday some members invited us to something called a Parrillada, where they basically grill all sorts of awesome meat, and we went and ate Cow Heart, Intestine (large and small) and Kindey! It was delicious and I loved it so much. My companion had a hard time getting it all down, but it was awesome. Just watching his face was hilarious as he tried gulping down those pieces of meat. We also were able to have 12 lessons with a member and 20 other lessons, which is huge! We also found another 25 people to teach which is awesome! Here in Argentina, when we find 25 people, it doens´t necesarily mean that each of the 25 are progressing and we´ll keep teaching them. Most of them aren´t prepared yet, but those are hte amount of people we´ve taught, and had a lesson with. Me and Elder Butta are just doin´ work here now. I love it! The mission is just so much more enjoyable as we´re super diligent and obedient and things. Yesterday was awesome too, because we had 2 people in church, and one of the investigators that came is the daughter of the relief society president, which hadn´t been to church in like 2 years, and she never got baptized, so she´s pretty emotional about that, and it was really cool because quite a few missionaries had passed by the house, but she always really felt pressured and things, but we just took it easy, and got ot know her really well, and we just broke the ice really well with her, and she came to church and made us a lemon pie! Haha so in church she was carrying it around all day until she saw us, and then all the members were like begging us to open it, but we were saving it, so we had to hide it in Guillermo´s car which was pretty funny. But it was a delicious pie. On saturday another member gave us 18 pastelitos too, so we basically just murdered those when we got back to the pensh, and we both felt a little sick, but they were delicious. It´s basically a little fried pastry with like a type of jelly inside, and they´re awesome.  Yesterday we made spaghetti for Guillermo and Viviana and they really enjoyed that, so that was fun.  Lots of cool crazy stuff happened this week but it´s hard to think of it all right now sorry!  I don´t know what it is lately, but literally like every single house we go into gives us food! It´s awesome, but it´s hard not to just pound it all down and keep eating like crazy. Luckily we´re running in the morning and lifting a little with some little weights some other elders left in the pensh, so that´s good. But the zone is doing really good, and the weather is really nice lately. It´s finally cooling down, and at night it´s actually getting pretty cold, and in the morning when we go run it´s pretty freezing at first.  We´re teaching a lot of people right now, but we´re still searching to find those super prepared people that are just ready to accept everything, but I know it´s coming soon, I can just feel it! This week we´ve got a cool multi zone conference with 5 other zones and with Elder Zeballos, he´s from the 70 so that´s awesome, and we´re in charge to get everything ready! So that´s cool, and it´s gonna be awesome. I have been studying a lot about God´s plan for us lately, and it´s just so fascinating how much he loves us. It just blows my mind sometimes how many chances he gives us, and how much he wants us to succeed, and how willing he is to give us the success when we work hard. So keep working hard everyone, and don´t forget to pray and read your scriptures to find out what you need to do! I love you all, sorry for the really scrambled letter, have a great week!

 

 We have lunch pretty much every single day with members, and we eat enough that we don´t have to eat again basically until breakfast or at night i´ll just eat like a carrot or something