October & November 2010

Quinn made the move to Trinidad quite easily. It is everything he remembers. Seeing the skyscrapers was quite a culture shock to him. He gets to experience Rick’s Bake & Shark again (an all-time favorite). He spent several p-days there enjoying the delicious food.




Quinn is no longer companions with Elder Anthony, he is now with Elder Neilson from Nephi, Utah.

For one of their p-days, the elders went to a place called Toco. There is a beach with lots of cool rocks and things to stand on/jump off of.



Quinn was able to drive for a few months, and they say if you can drive in Trinidad, you can drive anywhere in the world. The roads are windy and narrow, but they seem to be just fine.


Eating Cow Heel Soup:



In November Quinn was moved to Couva to be a district leader. His new companion is Elder George. He is on his 3rd transfer, and still very new. The area is very boring, with no beaches, no fun hikes, and all there is to do is lots of shopping which doesn’t really interest the elders. They also don’t get to drive.



November 5 was a holiday called Divali. During the day they met with some converts, and they managed to catch an iguana. They did end up cooking it, but the elders had to leave before it was ready to be eaten.



In early November, Quinn witnessed something that can only be seen in Trinidad, a garbage truck fell through the sidewalk. The drains are all covered by sidewalks, so when it pulled up to get out of the way, it fell right through the sidewalk and into the drain.

August & September 2010

Baptisims: Jamal (August 15) Sheila (September 27)

Elder Coleman from the 70’s came to the Zone Conference. Quinn had the opportunity to be interviewed by him. He has sure left an impression on Quinn.

Quinn went to Berbice again while Elder Ramnarain got some teeth work done.

While in Guyana Quinn learned how to drive a stick shift. He had to use the mission bus and transfer elders in August.

In September he had the opportunity to go to Trinidad for Zone Leader Council and Leadership Training. He was gone from Guyana for almost a full week.

Quinn’s Opinion of accents:
• St Vincent – Sounds a bit like Guyanese
• Grenada – Jamaican with a British twist
• Trinidad – Airy
• Barbados – WEIRD, they sound like they are chewing on something, and they never say “T” at the end of their words “You’ve go’a pu’ on yuh sea’ bel’”

After several months, Quinn was moved back to Trinidad. He lives quite close to the mission office. He was sad to leave Guyana though. Things were going very well for the missionaries.

June & July 2010

Baptisims: Brother Wilson (June 7th) Shavon (June 21) Orin (July 10)Sharmella

Zone Conference was the Week of June 14th. Quinn taught with assistants about how to find people to teach. They did an activity where they hid money in a room and eveyone had to find it before they started the lesson. The rest of Zone Conference was about member missionary work.

Quinn had the oportunity to take President Gamiette out with him teaching. They didn't have much success, because all appointments fell through, but they did have one awesome experience with a man named Orin.

They completed the total overhaul of their apartment. They painted, replaced the floor, and cleaned the ceilings.

Quinn got a new companion, Elder Ramnarian from Guyana. He was 9 months out when the two became companions.

Quinn attended Zone Leader Council in Trinidad. They flew there of course. It was a 2 day thing with lots of flights, and several delayed just like Quinn predicted they would be. At this point Quinn has taken 34 plane rides on his mission.

Quinn's Birthday was celebrated duirng the ZL Council. They sang him Happy Birthday and had a white cake with Lime Frosting. He loved it.


Pictures!

April & May 2010

The week of April 26th, Quinn had President Gamiette down for Stake Conference and Zone Conference. He was able to do splits with the assistants. They taught 13 lessons that day.

The wather is hot and humid and rainy in the spring. It makes the area all muddy. He has to shine his shoes on a weekly basis so people can tell they are black, not muddy caked brown.

Quinn was able to attend a West Indies vs. England Cricket game. He attended with Elder Moses and Elder Coronado.




Talking to Quinn on Mothers Day was nice. We talked from the fire station and conferencecd in Rick and Cami. It was hard to hear sometimes, but after much frustration, at least we got to talk to him. He left the call headed to play an all night game of Monopoly. He did not win :(

Quinn spends some of his pday time having game competitions. He took 3rd place in a Battleship competition. He also plays Risk with the elders. He was able to drive, and of course he drove on the wrong side of the road! They drive on the left side of the rroad down there, when he was helping the Senior Couple, the Ricks, charge the battery in their car.

Quinn has surely gotten his dad's handyman skills. He has made many improvements to most of the apartments where he has lived. He layed down new flooring in this apartment because the old floor was so bad.

They baptized a man named Rejendra. He speeks very little. He points with his face, his eyes, lips and eyebrows all together.



Transfers came and Quinn and Elder Coronado became zone leaders together. They are pretty much best friends, so it is going to be a great match.

Zone Leader

Quinn’s newest favorite place is Gift Land. They have everything a person could want. It sounds like they have movies months before they come out on DVD here in the states. I wonder what the quality is like.
Quinn met up with Simone Cummings who is from Grenada. She came to her mothers funeral, and Quinn was able to spend some time talking with her. It sounds like the branch there in Grenada is doing well, and the converts that Quinn had worked with are still attending the branch.
Quinn attended Zone Leader council in mid March. It was taught by Elder Coleman from the 1st quorum of the 70. He talked about establishing the church through baptism and higher priesthood ordinances. He also talked about the Book of Mormon. The meeting was in Trinidad, so Quinn got to travel. It was odd to see the differences of Guyana and the super Americanized Trinidad.
As we suffer on in a delayed winter, Quinn has acclimated quite well. He was having a hard time sleeping a few nights ago, because it was so cold (a whopping 78°). He is already requesting a coat, gloves, and fleece and wool beanie meet him at the airplane when he comes home in a year.
There has now been a mission all-nighter!! Quinn and Elder Coronado and Elder Murray stayed up all night playing Risk. Elder Coronado now owns the world!!

They have been working to reactivate a family who has a 13 year old daughter who is not baptized. They were able to baptize her. I am not sure of her name.

Quinn was moved to be put with the other zone leader, Elder Moses. He is now in the Georgetown 1st branch. They are able to do a lot of “zone leader stuff”. (whatever that means) Elder Moses is from Guyana. He is a lot more motivated than many of the missionaries in the country. He came out on the mission before the government put a limit on the missionaries.

In Guyana they celebrate Easter on Monday, so they can have the day off work.

The weekend of General Conference Quinn also conducted the Zone conference. They heard from a sister missionary who recently got back from her mission in the Dominican Republic. She was released in between sessions of zone conference.

Updates, now that I have the right password.

There has not been much success as yet, but Quinn not going to let that stop him from working hard. He is feeling more and more exhausted every day. He has really taken to heart what Mike said before he left. “Work yourself till you feel like you’re 90.” With the intensity that he works with, Quinn will feel closer to 200 when he gets home.
Oildown is hard to explain. It’s breadfruit, dumplings, some kind of meat and a lot of seasoning. Quinn loves it! He just don’t know what exactly is in it… Probably best. Haha
Things are very 3rd world here. In the city, where Quinn is, it’s not too bad. He went on exchanges with Elder Livingston. They walked over some 20 foot trenches (basically the sewer system) on board bridges barely wider than your foot. It was fun! There are a lot of Christians, but plenty Hindus and Muslims too. They live near this crazy church called the “Mystical Triangle Order of the Great Shepherd”. It’s messed up!
A family Quinn was working with in Grenada, The Cummings, the mother lives in Guayna. He is serving in her branch.
Quinn is officially the senior zone leader now. After 3 weeks in the area. The other one was emergency transferred to another zone and they gave Quinn someone who has never been a zone leader. He's a local named elder Moses. He's really cool and Quinn is excited to work with him. Pretty cool. Lots of responsibility though. It's cool seeing what's going on throughout the whole mission.
The area of Quinns mission is totally different from where he has been before. He is in the capital city, but it's still pretty small. Very poor. Apartment is dirty, but with nice water pressure. Always cold! Showering is no fun. They have a washer that takes a month to fill on its own, so they use a bucket to fill it up from the sink. Use a clothes line strung up in the apartment to dry. It's hot. The people are racist. haha But not all of them.
Elder Bharat got his wisdom teeth out. Quinn watched the doctor do the first one, but didn’t see anything so with the second one he stood up and tried to see a bit closer. The dr said she could come watch over her shoulder. In true Quinn fashion, somehow he was asked by the doctor to put on some gloves and assist. I am not sure how he gets these awesome opportunities. He got to hold the little sucker while she cut, drilled and pulled.
They were not able to work because elder Bharat was sick. Quinn managed to read most of the Book of Mormon in the time he was waiting. He also was able to brush up on his artist skills, drawing lots of pictures. He didn’t send any home, so I am not sure how well he did, but he thinks they are great 
Quinn celebrated a holiday called Phagway(pog’-wuh) where people go around and get you wet and throw colored powder at you. It is the Hindu festival of colour. Hopefully he will send some pictures of that.
Quinn had transfers. He is now with elder Babbel. He is from Oregon. Quinn calls him Nacho Libre.
They are one of the two all-American companionships in the zone. They get along very well.

BIG CHANGES!!!

Well, big news. Quinn is leaving Trinidad!!! He will be leaving Wednesday (January 20, 2010). After Zone Conference Quinn found out that he will be moving to Guyana. He will be the Zone Leader there!! His old trainee, Elder Livingston, will be the district leader down there. His “greenie” will also be going to Guyana and will be another district leader. Quinn sure knows how to teach them to be successful missionaries!!

He will be in Georgetown, the capital. The area is called Grove. Guyana has the second worst living conditions of any mission in the world. He mentions that he will have a “cutlass” but I am not positive what that is. He guesses:
• No Running Wager, just a big black tank
• Showers in Buckets
• Not sure what the apartment will be
• Filter all water, because it is so bad
• A local missionary companion (Elder Bharat)
• Most people cannot read
• Daily Blackouts
• A SWEET scripture case made out of alligator
• Lots of alligator to eat
• A cool leather belt with his name on it

With Quinn leaving on Wednesday, he will have to leave before the baptisms he has lined up for next month. He has 6 set. They have also had 4 less active people come back to church.

He did not feel the earthquake that destroyed Haiti.

Zone conference was incredible. They discussed about ways to get the work to really take off. They are going to work with strong members and get referrals of the less actives in the area. They too are working on the retention of the members. Isn’t it amazing that the things we study and work on here, are the same things that they work on there.

Last thing to look forward in Guyana:
• Haiti is the only country in the Western Hemisphere poorer than Guyana

At least while in these other countries Quinn is not forgetting his roots:

January Updates

Things are pretty slow and there’s nothing fun to do in Chaguanas.

Quinn miss’s the islands. He is not sure yet if he will be able to return to the islands. He received a red stamp in his passport when he arrived in Trinidad, which, he says, signifies that he can not return to Trinidad for 5 years once he leaves. We are not certain that is what it means, so we will have to see.

They working with a lot of cool people, but they aren’t committing to a specific day to be baptized. They want to, but they don’t know when. They did have 8 investigators in sacrament meeting a few weeks ago, which is cool. But the new requirements are making it very hard to get people to commit to baptism. They do have one man, who’s wife and children are members, is coming to church and may commit to baptism soon.

Quinn finally saw the ocean for the first time on since moving to Trinidad.

Quinn is really enjoying having Elder McKeachnie as his companion. They work hard and have a lot of fun together. Transfers are soon, and Quinn is hoping they do not get split up.

Below is Quinn’s favorite story (so far) from the mission:
“Grenada is about my favorite experience. With Patrick waiting for half an hour to talk to us and ask what church we represent, then telling us he wants to get baptized and being pretty much the most golden person EVER, with how the church was really struggling in the beginning with about 40 people in church when I got there and 80 people when I left. The church grew both literally with the building expanding and figuratively with the membership growing and people coming more regularly. One med student, speaking before he left for home the last time, talked about the changes he’d seen in the branch. He was speaking from a wooden pulpit that didn’t wobble when you leaned on it, through speakers so everyone could hear him, to a chapel filled nearly to capacity. It was figurative of all the changes he’d seen since he came. The church had a much more solid foundation in Grenada. Now they’re even moving out to a new town and are hopefully going to be starting a new branch in Grenada before too long! I’m so excited to hear all of it! Patrick was especially awesome because there are 4 wards in the city where he lives, a temple in his country and yet he had to come to Grenada to me and Elder Larson to learn about the gospel. He has seen the book of Mormon in Yoruba, his native language, but never realized it until we showed it to him. He’s actually back in Nigeria now where so many more blessings of the gospel are available to him. I’m sad that I won’t be able to see him unless I go to Nigeria, but I’m happy to see that he’ll be in an area where he has so many more opportunities for growth.”

Zone conference was January 11th. We will see in his next letter how it went.

Merry Christmas from the West Indies

Talking to Quinn at Christmas was neat. There were a few problems (like we didn't have the right number) but we eventually got to talk to him for almost 2 hours.

Quinn has been eating intersing things still including Cow Tongue, Pig Snouts and Doubles. Doubles are a common street food in Trinidad and Tobago. It is a sandwich made with two flat fried breads, called "bara", filled with curried chick peas or garbanzo beans, commonly called channa. Topped with a variety of spicy chutneys (mango, cucumber, coconut, tamarind) and extra pepper sauce. He buys those quite often.

Quinn still misses seeing the ocean. It has been an adjustment for him.

It was great for Quinn to get to hear Mikkean say "Hi Quinn". I have to say it was the highlight of the call.

Quinn is doing really great. He is having a great time, and growing so much spiritually.

Pre-Christmas Updates

So this is from the middle of December, before we talked to him at Christmas. I am still going to post, just because there is some interesting stuff.

After 6 months Quinn has finally been transferred. He left to Chaguanas Trinidad on Wednesday December 9th. The area is full of east Indians who love to feed the missionaries. He is homesick for Grenada, but he felt the same way when he left St. Vincent. The 6 months he lived in Grenada is the longest he has lived anywhere (besides home).

The transition is weird because he doesn’t see the ocean ever, and after 9 months of seeing it every day, it is quite a bummer. The weather is cool, and a bit rainy.

Quinn is learning about the Hindu religion which is the prominent religion there.

The branch is small but strong. There are several really cool investigators. The baptisms will take place in a font instead of the ocean. The Stake President lives in the Branch, and is a really neat guy.

His new companion is named Elder McKeachnie. He is from Highland, Utah. The get along well. Quinn is the only companion he has had besides his trainer.

We will be talking to Quinn this Friday, YEAH CHRISTMAS, so hopefully there will be much more to post next week.