Ops Gear

Two men broke into Ops Gear earlier this month. The owner is offering a reward for their arrest. These men had no idea they were about to piss off so many people, including many local police and military personnel. Quinn is going to be so mad when he finds out. KSL ran the full story and additional video. The videos below are from You Tube:
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Sea Urchin Removal Master

There is a lot more to do in St. Vincent than on Grenada. There are some cool thing, like the gorgeous beach right outside our door. Once Quinn gets down to Guyana, things will change. It’ll be nice and dirty and very little running water and powerThat’s where the majority of the baptisms happen. However, people used to say Grenada was a dry island (in other words, they don’t baptize) but Quinn is trying to change that!

Quinn is district leader. He thought it would be a co-companionship, meaning to senior or junior companion, but on the transfer sheet, it doesn’t say that. Elder Larson has been out around 13 months now. He’s Quinns youngest companion (20), but he’s still way older than Quinn, mission age. He’s cool and they should work really well together.



Quinn claims he most definitely has the best mission on the earth! He does get to be in this incredibly beautiful country AND baptize a ton! He has had 3 baptisms so far and the number is only going up. The islands are known for being slow, so when Quinn gets to Guyana, things will look up even more. Provided he continues working as hard as he is.

Carnival has begun in Grenada. It started Friday night (8/7), but has just been getting worse. It ends on Tuesday (8/11). It’s been pouring rain and since they’re so afraid of it, it’s been pretty quiet most of the day

People in Grenada are fairly poor, but nothing like in Guyana. Umbrellas don’t really help out because 90% of the people just use the rain as a stupid excuse not to do something. It’s way lame. It poured last week, so they thought no one would be in church. Instead, a lot of people showed up! Mostly med students, of course, but also some visitors too, including 4 investigators.


Quinn had a baptism on Monday (8/17) Quinn had to clean out the font. He is the “Sea Urchin Removal Master” They are baptizing a girl named Aboni. Her mother has finally allowed her to be baptized.



He is having a lot of fun. He is working hard but still takes time to enjoy the scenery.

Happy Birthday Quinn!!

Quinn has been teaching Marella and Magella Street, the twin sisters that should have been baptized a few weeks ago. They’re both really cool and Magella wants to be a missionary. She’s been bringing people to church and talking to her family about the gospel and everything. She had a big discussion about the Book of Mormon with her brother who burned a copy that we gave him because of the pictures that are in the front. He said that he knew it wasn’t true because the bible doesn’t have pictures in it. They are also teaching her friend Akim and his family now. Akim should have been baptized this week, but his father doesn’t want him to yet. They got his 3 sisters to come to church this week and they all really enjoyed it. They should be baptizing them soon as well.

They still working to find more people to teach. Particularly men that can hold the priesthood. Men are just stubborn no matter where you go in the world, so that can be difficult.

They work with members as much as we can here, but they’re very spread out (the branch covers the entire country! They are the only missionaries in the mission with a whole country to themselves) and not always available. The med students are really good about it when they have time. They’re all RM’s and want to help out.

Quinn is allowed to drink Dr. Pepper so he included a picture of that. In the picture he is wearing a Real Madrid jersey he bought down there. As much as Quinn hates country, he hates Soca music even more, and he is completely inundated with it from the passing busses. The country is preparing for Carnival this month so the music is on all the time.



The picture of Quinn with a Chinese man is our old elder’s quorum president, Qin. He’s moving back to China this week, so they had a goodbye party for him on Saturday. He’s way cool. He’s been a member for a little less than a year now. He lived here for 3 years working as a translator at a Chinese restaurant. Apparently there is a branch of the church in the town where he lives. Mainland China, can you believe it! The second coming will be here just now. That would be way cool to go to china and visit him. Quinn is going to have to learn Chinese.



Quinn celebrated his birthday last week. He is now the big 21!! Patti sent him some of her homemade cookies, and it was much appreciated. He has changed so much in look and spirit since he left in March. We are so proud of you Quinn. Keep up the good work!!

Catching Up...

It’s been really weird being in a brand new area where he has no clue where anything is. Grenada is absolutely beautiful. Below is the view from their apartment. They walk on the beach a lot and Quinn or Elder Monty as they call him, has even built a sand castle.


The church is really cool. It has a baptismal “font” there too. It’s steps to the ocean and a flat spot of rock. They are the only missionaries that have permission to go in the ocean for anything other than a baptism. They have to clean the font before they can baptize there and they’re also going to enlarge it. It’s really cool being in a branch full of return missionaries and their wives and kids.

Elder Monty went to visit Fort Frederick and Fort Matthew on a p-day. The second one is the coolest fort he has ever been to. It had lots of buildings in it, most of which were connected by a big tunnel system that they got to explore! There were lots of prison cells and just a ton of fun stuff to see! Fort Matthew would be really cool for photographers because there’s just so much there. The tunnels are awesome. The long hallways with lots of doors are like something out of a movie. It was fun just running through and taking pictures of everything they could! The walls at Fort Frederick were really cool. The blocks that make up the walls were actually hand cut by slaves when the fort was built. They’re really well done too. And different rows are made with bricks of different heights, but it’s all done perfectly smoothly. Even the corners are perfectly rounded





On another p-day they went out to the old abandoned Cuban airport and climbed in the old planes there. The navy SEALS came in and disabled them in the invasion. The big one where they are sticking out of the cockpit was Cuban and the other one was Russian. It was so cool! The runway is totally intact and the beach at the end of it is pretty cool too. Normally, they see the Caribbean Sea, but on this side of the island, they see the Atlantic, so that was cool too.



During that day they also saw this random monkey.


They drove around the entire island on that same p-day.

They are having some real good success here. They had 6 investigators at church this week!

Although he may never pick up the full accent, Quinn is learning to speak Caribbean speak. He says “tings” for things, “tonks” for thanks, “one time” for immediately and lots of other things.

Hit The 100 Day Mark

Well Quinn hit his 100 days out in the mission and has now been transferred to Grenada. He left for Grenada on Wednesday June 24th, so his next letter should have an update on the new locations. He finished his St. Vincent time in Kingstown. Quinns’ new companion will be Elder Sarager. He has worked with him a few times already so the transition should not be such a shock. The only people serving in Grenada will be Quinn & Elder Sarager and Brother & Sister Rasmussen, a senior couple. He has met them before and likes them both.
As far as the stories we have been following in St. Vincent, Tony and Donna are planning on getting married before they get baptized. Quinn is sad he will miss seeing Donna get baptized.
As far as the move to Grenada, there should be a state organized there (pretty soon since they have so many members). As soon as the stake is organized they will open a new area called Bartika. It is deeper in the Amazon, but Quinn has no idea if he will be going there. He would like to because the people who inhabit this area are direct descendents of the Lamanites. These are the people that the Book of Mormon was written specifically to speak too!
Big things continue to happen in the mission. There were 68 people baptized in the last week. That is a new record for the mission.

Just an Update

June 1st was quite interesting. It was a national holiday, so everything was closed. There was one store open to buy groceries, but that’s it. They went back to Wallilabou Bay, where they filmed pirates and ate lunch in the restaurant there.


The big metal thing that jack sparrow swings off of and the boat mast he stops off onto the dock as the ship is sinking.



A wall with pictures of the cast and crew and some signatures as well. Jonny Depp’s was right in the middle of the skull.


> So, as far as the work is going… It’s moving onward! They are teaching lots of new people and have met some really cool people. They began teaching a 19 year old girl who lives with her boyfriend a couple weeks ago. She came to church this week and loved it. She knows the church is true and is working on moving out of her boyfriends house so she can be baptized. Her baptism date is set for the 20th!
So even though it was going quite slowly before, it’s picking up a lot.

Quinn has been busy making improvements to the new church. It has a long way to go before it will be ready to hold meetings in. It is big enough to hold over 100 people. The branch right now only has 35 people, but it leaves lots of room for growth.


The Church


Everyone on the top of the church. The view is beautiful.

Calliaqua

Quinn, in his many adventures visited Hell’s Gate Waterfall and Blackpoint on one of his p-days. Hell’s Gate has 3 different waterfalls. He says the water is absolutely beautiful, and really has no reflection, so you can see the rocks anywhere along the way.







Quinn is in Calliaqua. It is pronounced Cal’-uh-kwah. The work is slow but continuing on. He is with Elder White, who will be going home soon. Quinn thinks he will be in this area for another transfer which translates to 6 months total in Calliaqua. At the next transfers Quinn will also get a new mission president. President Gamiette. Quinn has met him and his wife. He seems to like them quite well. That means Quinn gets the opportunity to learn from two different mission presidents while he serves. That is an awesome experience.