Week 23

Well this week has been awesome as always! On Monday night my companion and I were talking about how awesome our time together was.  I really feel so blessed to have had him as a companion!  He taught me so much and I know I wouldn't have learned what I learned from anyone else then him.  We felt an amazing peace come over us that night as we sat in our house talking because we knew that the 4 months that we were together was an inspired time of the Lord.  That isn't to say that we felt that we did a perfect job together, but we felt that we had been forgiven our our weaknesses and mistakes and that the Lord knew that we did our best and He is happy with our work!  

So early on Tuesday morning we went to the misison offices for cambios!  And guess what?  I am training!  My companion is from Mexico City.  He is 18 years old.  He is really awesome!  It feels so weird to go from being with my trainer to being a trainer and having a lot more responsibilities!  We had a sucessful week together and we are learning fast how to work together!  He is really struggling with the heat and never feels like contacting, so we are going to go to one of the huge markets on Wednesday so he can lose his fear of contacting!    

I love seeing the video of Abby!  It is weird to think that I knew her for 2 weeks!  Man she is so big!  I cannot believe that she has 6 months and that I have 6 months in the mission!  It has gone by so fast!  Oh....whenever I see a baby that has 6 months I think of Abby!  We have an investigator that is 15 years old and has a a baby of 9 months! Yeah...it is scary!  But she seems to be a good mom!  

So we have an investigator that is just pure GOOOOOLLLDDD!  I don't know if I have told you about her but she is called Melisa!  She was in a relationship with a guy named Pablo (one of the best men I have ever met!  He is soooo cool).  They have 2 kids together, but they are not married. About 4 months ago Melisa left Pablo because she was angry. She left the kids with Pablo and went with another man!  Pablo got depressed for a little while and then the missionaries found him and he got baptismed in less the 2 months!  He changed everything (he used to be an alcoholic and addicted to drugs).  2 months after leaving him Melisa felt really bad for leaving her kids so she went back to see her kids...  and told us "it was a mircale.  I did not know what I was seeing, my x boyfriend had changed his life and I could hardly recognize him.  He changed everything.  I knew that God had to be a part of it because he was so happy and just had a light about him.  I was expecting to see a single father struggling to raise 2 kids and deal with his addictions, but I saw just the opposite! "  I can't tell you how amazing it is to be part of their lives!  Melisa is going to be baptized next month and is so happy to leave her old life behind and start over!  I don't know if Pablo is ever going to marry Melisa because she cheated on him, but he is so humble and amazing that he is sharing the gosple with her and is the best example of humility and love ever.  He has also shared the gospel with his brother!  His brother was baptized a month ago!  And his mom and his aunt are listening the missionaries right now and want to get baptized!  My testimony of the atonement is so much stronger seeing these changes in their lives!  The power of the atonement to change lives is amazing!  I know that Christ is our Savior and that we can be freed from whatever sin, addiction, affliction or weakness that we have in our lives!  MAN... It is just so awesome!  

That is so cool that Carter and Clark are teaching Coleman through skype!  

We have a baptism of a girl named Lizbeth this Sunday!  I am really excited!

Alex is just a machine that never stops.  take it easy bro.  You still need to serve a mission.  Don't use all you energy now!  haha,  You're awesome!  Keep practicing basketball so maybe when I get home you can finally beat me;) just kidding, you are already better then me, but I´ll tell you what!  I am going to school you in soccer! 

Mom- I'm am glad that you had a good birthday!  Tahoe Joes sounds so good right now!  

Dad- That is so exciting for Hannah!  That would be so cool to go to Italy on a mission but also very hard!  Tell her that I love her and tell her how happy I am for her and her decision to serve a mission!  Yeah the weather is pretty bad, but I am getting used to it!  I dont think I have ever drunk just bottled water! hahha....It is because we just go to someones house if we are thristy!  It is a great way to contact!  Love you so much Dad!  Thanks for always being a great example of how a man should treat a woman(Mom)!  You are awesome and I am always happy to hear your letters!  And I am not homesick at all but yes sometimes I do wish I could just relax at home with the family.

Oh I forgot to tell you about something awesome that happened!  Well maybe not awesome, but I thought it was pretty funny!  When Elder Astacio and I were together we went to the house of Eulaio (recent convert) to say goodbye to him and we thought it would be funny to play a joke on my next companion that I was going to have the next day.  Eulalio is always joking with us so we decide to plan a joke on my next companion! ( not knowing that I would be training a missionary and that it would be his first day in the mission).  We just told him to act like he didn't want to us to be in his house!  So then the next day I went and got my companion and forgot about the joke we were going to play. We arrived at our appointment at 7:00 on Tuesday (my comps first day in the mission!)  Eulaio was upstairs and came down the stair when we entered and started yelling and picked up a hammer and told us to get out and never come back!  Yeah so my comp was pretty scared and I felt bad, but it was still pretty awesome. Now my comp and I laugh about it, but he was so SCARED!!!!

Yeah that is the story!  

Love you

Elder Quist

Week 22

CAMBIOS!   My trainer is leaving me!  I am so glad that I am staying in Metroplex because I just love all of the converts here!  But it is going to be a lot of pressure to have to be the one in charge of the area!  Tomorrow early in the morning we are going to pack up all of my companions stuff and get in the taxi to go to the mission offices!  From there I will find out who is my new comp and we will get in the taxi again and then get to work!  

This week has been SOOOOOO great!  We had the baptism of Noe.  He is the boyfriend of a young adult in the ward!  We have been teaching him for 2 months and he was finally baptized on Friday!  It was his birthday that day too!  He was so happy. I can not even tell you!  I gave a talk in the baptism about Noe y El arca!  I related it to the Holy Ghost and how the arc represents the Holy Ghost and the animals represent the commandments.  Noah made a covenant with the Lord to keep the animals safe and when we are baptized we make a convenant to follow Jesus Christ and keep his commandments (the animals safe).  But the Lord would never leave us alone with such a great task and that is why we have the gift of the Holy Ghost so that we can receive the divine power as we live worthy and take the sacrament to keep the commandments and follow Jesus Christ!  

Well I can't tell you how happy I am right now!  The recent converts are so happy and this next transfer we have so much work to do!  Love you all and especially you Mom!  Happy birthday!  Buy yourself something nice and I will pay you back when I get home;) hahha

Love ELder Quist

We had cake after the baptism

​We did not have money to buy much food this week so for beakfast and dinner I had cornflakes!  but dont worry,,the sisters in the ward feed us good every day!

Week 21

Andales! Sounds like a pretty crazy week!  That is so amazing that Alex and Harely got to come so much closer!  I hope Alex had an awesome week!  Mom I just want to tell you how much I love you. I am grateful for people like you who care so much about others!  And dad I am grateful for the help that you give to mom and the example you are!  

Well this week has been a really good week! Two of our recent converts received the Aaronic priesthood and 1receive  the Holy Ghost.  We are finding new people to teach and trying to find the best way to use our time!  Last week we had zone training meeting and we learned how to find the people who are ready to change their lives!  The gospel is for everyone but I am learning that not everyone in ready for it right now!  

So my companion and I had a funny experience the other day when we were contacting!  We contacted 40 people that day and had some success finding new people.  But with one guy it was different!  We contacted this man that looked really nice but when we started talking he went off on us and told us how he was athiest and then went on to tell us why he believed there is no way that there is a God!  We just listened and then told him that if he ever wanted to hear a message of hope he could call us!  We shook his hand and said "see you later"  and he responded " May God bless you" hahahha.    Well my companion and I thought that it was pretty funny and we thought about contacting him again to ask him if he believed in God and to see if it was the same person...

We have some of the same situations that Shelby is having!  We have a family that isn't married and we just need to wait for them to get married and they are going to get baptized on August 10th.  We had 13 lessons with members this week too and had 5 investigators in sacrament meeting!  Oh and I got to eat Peruvian food last Monday!  We have a member that recently move to Mexico from Shelby's mission!  We ate typical Peruvian food "aji de gallina" for dinner and "mazamorra morada"  for desert!  When ever I have a question about Shelby's mission I ask this member.  Do you know these plates Shelby?

Love you dad! Thanks for your words of support!  I always laugh when I see that you tell me to drink more water every week!  

It really is amazing how the decisions of your parents have affected so many lives!

Love Elder Quist!

 

OH P.S.  I saw the pictures of Carters apartment!  Is that a joke!  That house is ridiculous!  

Week 20

I want this car!!

Buenos Dias from Mexico!  

This week has been a really great week!  We had some really amazing experiences and I feel like we are progressing a lot.  First, I think that the experiences that Carter had were completely opposite of my experience on the 4th of July hahah.  That morning I wrote in my journal so I obvisiously knew it was 4 de julio but the thought never came into my mind that it was The 4th of July!  haha  So I conintued on with the day not knowing it was independence day until 3:00 when a memeber asked me how my 4th of July was and then I remember! hahah.  In the night before going to bed my companion and I drew an American flag on a napkin and said the pledge of allegiance ...well not really, he just listened to me and tried to understand what I was saying.  His English is getting better!  He really wants to learn English so he can go back to the Dominican Republic and work in a hotel.  Hopeful he will hook us up with a deal so we can go on vacation there!  Oh, and we also had classes de Ingles in the chapel in Friday night!  We are going to starting having English classes every Friday night and hope to be able to find new investigators that way.  

Yesterday Gerardo Jimenez and Hno Jesus were baptized.  There were 5 convert baptisms in the chapel yesterday!!  2 from our ward and 3 from the other mission!  The baptism of Gerardo was at 3:00 and it was such an awesome service!  We had the 2 baptisms in the same service!  Jesus in a man from the other misisonaries in our ward!  I felt the spirit so strong when he was baptized because he has made many mistakes in his life and I felt the forgiveness that he recieved that day!

And Gerardo.  He is pretty much the next bishop! haha...He is so prepared and is such a great leader!  His brother in law is the stake president of another stake and all of his family have been members for such a long time!  I think he just had a closed heart for so many years but finally the Lord has prepared him.  It feels so good to help in the process of this family becoming una familia eterna!  They are amazing!  About 2 months ago we had a zone activity in one of the huge markets in our zone.  We were in intercambios (dont know how to say that in ingles...exchanges?) that day with the zone leaders and we were contacting in the market and we contacted this family!  At first we didn't know that Ivonne (the wife of Gerardo) was a member because she has be less active for a year but then she told us that she was a member and we took their address and went to their house 5 days later.  Since then Ivonne and her kid and Gerardo have gone to church every sunday!  It is amazing to help a less active and and investigator at the same time!  In the baptismal service the stake president talked and he gave an amazing talk!  The spirit was so strong!  

Another experience this week!  We were teaching this lady named Maida.  We met her through her neighbors who are members and had a family home evening with her.  At first she told us that she got baptized when she was 5 in the church of Jesus Christ!  and my companion and I were like "what she must be confused with a differnet church but then she later told us that she was baptized when we was 8 and stopped going to church when we was 10.  She has 40 year inactive!  She has a son with a blood disorder or disease and he is stuck in his bed all day and has never been able to play futbol with his friends!  It is pretty sad.  We gave him a blessing 2 weeks ago and when we returned 3 days ago we walked in the house and saw him walking around and were so suprised!  The mom then expressed how grateful they were for our blessing because they knew that through their faith their son is being healed through the power of the Priesthood!  I testify that the power of the priesthood is real.  I know because I have seen it change lives like the life of this kid!  I cannot deny a testimony of the power of the priesthood like this. 

The experiences and opportunities that I am having here are amazing and I wouldn't trade them for anything ( not even an awesome firework show!) hhaha.

Love you all family!  Especially you, MOM and DAD!  You are such great parents!  I hope you know that!  Love you ALex!  and Cam all I can say is be safe! haha jk. 

Elder Quist

An Eternal Family 

Hey family - remember the Tacos and Beer restaurant!  Yeah it's amazing

Week 19

Good Afternoon from Mexico! 

This week has been really good!  We taught 30 lessons this week and that is the most we have had so far.  

After going to the temple the bishop took us to  this market in the center of Monterrey!  We were walking down the street and then I saw a warehouse with a tiny door and we entered in.  I was a little scared about where we were going.  As we walked in the door it opened up to a huge indoor market like you would see in the movies with meat everywhere and food and just crazy things!  I thought I was in China!  It was so cool but very gross because there are no health laws!  the meat just sitting out!  We went to this one tent and they were selling goat!  We took a picture with the whole cooked goat and then bought it and ate it on the way out.  I had to try not to think about how many unwashed hands touched my food but it has been 5 days and I'm not sick yet so I'm not worried!  I'll send a picture!

We had stake conference this week and we have a new stake presidency!  Our bishop got called to be a counselor so we are going to have a new bishop.  

We went to eat at the house of a member se llama Hermana Meche.  She can talk so much!  and she is crazy but I say this in the most loving way but it is true!  She has a son who is an achoholic and they have a bad relationship.  She loves him so mcuh but doesn't know how to help him,so she has been going around the town talking bad about him to everyone so that he will feel bad and be humble.  We had a lesson with them after eating.  We taught them how to have a civilized conversaion without yelling and interrupting  each other.  The spirit was really strong and I think  that their relationship became better.  We pretty much were there directing their conversation.  It was anexperience  I won't forget!  I am definaty  being matured by seeing so many family problem!  The family is being attacked by the devil and I can testify of that because I see it every day, but our leaders have promised us if we as a family have daily scripture study and pray every night and noche de hogar every week we will not fall as a family.  

Dad it wasn't dangerous in the street when Mexico lost the soccer game but the people were sad and yes from everyone I heard about the game!  It was stake conference and it was amazing to see how many faithful members went.  There were so many people.  And yes it is very hot here but I will live if I drink water!

Love ELder Quist

​It rained so hard this week and the main street in my area became a 2 foot deep river!