Week 63 - No Dinero

I have no mo dinero. 

This describes my week very well. 

It was a good week though.

Just a very poor one as well.

On Tuesday we had a district meeting and we talked about being grateful.

Alma 34:38 That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you.  

I really like this one.

Always remember to be grateful.

Especially this time of year.

On Wednesday we ate very far away.

It was very pretty. 

But it costs a lot to get there so now I am broke.

Thursday we also ate very far away.

We had a good lesson.

Then this mean lady told me to go away while we tried to talk to her husband.

She is quite rude.

Friday we ate close to home and I saved money.

Then we spent 4 hours walking around looking for a bunch of contacts we had made.

No one was home.

Saturday the same thing happened...

Sunday was good, but the church is far so I ran out of my money... again.

But it was a good week!

The sisters of Raul (the kid we baptized) are going to get baptized soon too!

PRAY FOR THEM :))

I love each and every one of you. I hope you have not gotten mad at me for being a bad writer of weekly emails. Endure to the end :)

Elder Quist

Week 62 - Baptism and New House!

Hi Everybody!

So we finally have a new house. Thank goodness. Pics coming soon of our house. Nothing too special though. It kinda reminds me of a jail cell... but it is not the first time so that's fine. 

We spent the first couple days figuring out how to situate the house. With 4 elders living in the same house, it can get a little complicated, but we figured everything out eventually.

So our area just barely changed to a different ward. It was part of Vicente Guerrero, but now it is part of Barrio Pueblo Nuevo (barrio means ward for you gringos..). It is a pretty big ward. The church building is super nice, one of the nicest in the mission. It is in a super pretty area. The only bad thing is that it is soooooo far away, like 45 minutes on a bus. So that is a little difficult. 

Now getting to the best news! We had a baptism on Saturday! Raul is 9 and he is a little ball of energy, he is crazy. The font was super warm. It was a super fun experience. We are teaching his older sisters too and they should be getting baptized soon too! Got lots of potential in this new area! 

Sorry I always do short emails.

Love y'all!

Elder Quist :)

New House with Elders Strunk, Rowberry and Crockett

 Zone Conference

 Elders Crockett, Petersen and Quist

With the Garcia Family

Week 61 - House Hunting

Hi All!

Crazy, tiring week. I would like to make this a nice long email, but really not much happened.  

Basically all week, all day everyday, we went to our area named "Los Alamos" and looked for a house and sometimes we went to the area of Crockett and Rowberry called Cuautzingo and looked for a house there because our areas are close. And we basically found nothing. Finally we found one Saturday that will probably work and I think we are moving in a little bit today and a lil bit tomorrow. I still don't really know. We are looking for houses because they are opening both of our areas and the leaders did not buy us a house. Right now we are living in the house of the AP's and the secretaries and don't get me wrong, it is a party, but we are living out of our suitcases and that kinda sucks.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I really truly hope you enjoyed the holiday with some loved ones! Now get ready for Navidad :)

I love you guys, sorry for the short email again :/

Elder Quist!

Week 60 - THANKSGIVIN'

Hey y'all. Crazy stuff goin' on in Mexico. 

TUESDAY: BUSY DAY LOTS OF WORK LOTS OF LESSONS IT WAS GREAT :))

WEDNESDAY: SAME THOUGH.

THURSDAY: OK so this morning was when all the crazy stuff happened. We woke up and got ready and then we went to Ayapango near Amecameca, we are trying to get the Salas fam married there (cause it is cheaper there and the judge is nice to the missionaries I guess?), and we left our house at 8:30 and got back to the house at like 3ish. We then had to get some info so we could get some medical analysis (for the wedding, I'm not sick I promise), and then Elder Rowberry and Elder Herrera came to our area to do some interviews for baptism! Andrea and Mayte both passed there interviews! It was a fun evening. Then we went and visited a few families before going home. 

FRIDAY: So in the morning the analysis was ready so we went to Chalco to go get them. We then got all our stuff ready, went to lunch, then went to the church at 3 to get ready for the BAPTISM. We showed up about 4 hours early because the font doesn't fill up very fast. We got the boiler goin and then just waited, bored out of our minds, as the font filled up. We had the baptism at 7:30ish. It was awesome :)) Mayte is awesome, she is so ready to be baptized. Funny story: How do you baptize someone scared of water?? HERE'S HOW. You use all the words in your spanish vocabulary that you can think of as you slowly get them to take their shoes off; then you do the same thing as you get them into the door that leads to the font; then you do the same thing as you put one toe into the water; repeat until all toes are in the water; repeat process until they are completely in the water!; THEN tell the person that they can't get out until they get baptized hahahaha works everyyyyy time. *sidenote, it took about 20 minutes*. Then I got to confirm her! It was awesome.

SATURDAY: Today was good, not as crazy. We visited a bunch of people (I will explain later why...). We got stuff ready for tomorrow. 

SUNDAY WOWZA CRAZY DAY: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAH I was two hairs away from going crazy yesterday... 

The day started at 3:30am. We woke up, got ready, then took a taxi to the church. Turned the boiler on and got everything ready for 4 MORE BAPTISMS!!! It was SO cold in the church. Now, lemme explain: Last week an area seventy came to the mission and had a meeting with ward and stake leaders, announcing a bunch of changes. I knew about this changes but we all thought they would not happen for awhile. Turns out they are happening immediately. Our area is an entire ward and our ward of Cuatro Vientos is being changed to a branch and is changing to the Ixtapaluca Stake. Which means that our area is changing missions to the Mexico South East mission. For the last couple of days, the assistants to president and the secretaries for their mission have been calling me asking about the area. On Thursday it was confirmed. When we went to Chalco President Zapata talked to me about what is going on. On Tuesday we will be leaving :( The Salas family will not be able to get married before I leave so I won't be able to baptize them :(((( We have been working with them for 4 1/2 months! I was devestated. So we got their permission to baptize their kids, Sol, Mariana, and Oscar. So yesterday at 9, we baptized Sol, Mariana, Oscar, and Andrea!!!! It was awesome! The font felt super nice, very warm, like a jacuzzi. 

Church started. We confirmed those 4 and Fatima from last week. SUPER STRESSFUL. At church today were the stake presidents from Chalco AND Ixtapaluca, the mission president from the South-East mission and his wife (super cool people), a secretary from their mission, and one of their assistants to the president who will be the new missionary here in Cuatro Vientos. NO PRESSURE. But I did it, it was an incredible experience. Super grateful. Then I showed the new missionary around the area a little bit, told him about investigators, all that fun stuff. I was sad cause I was not going to be able to baptize Bernardo and Ana Salas :( But I felt like I should talk to President Mann (from South-East mission) about it. I explained the situation and he said he would be honored if I come back to baptize in about a week!!!! Not only can I see them baptized, I can BAPTIZE THEM FASKHFDAÑJFUAQEFHIPÑSAIÑJ I am very happy about this news!

Later I got our changes. They changed around the whole stake, and a couple others as well, about half the mission changed, and I will be staying in the Chalco area! Turns out that the AP's are changing their area and my son and I will be going there! Dope. :))

STRESSFUL WEEK ((: I love y'all! 

Elder Quist

Week 59 - CUATRO VIENTOS

Hello family and friends! 

Had a super exhausting week, but that's good right? 

Tuesday we spent most of the day in Amecameca at the trainers meeting. We left our house at 8:45 and got back to the house at about 5 pm. It was a brutal meeting, but I really liked it. President Zapata talked to us about our attitude about each of our areas. There is no such thing as a bad area or a good area. All areas can be successful, but if we don't think it can be successful, it will be pretty hard for God to bless you with success. BUT if you go in there thinking it is the best area, working like it is the best area, praying like it is the best area, you WILL have success. It will get to a point where God cannot deny you the blessings.

Friday was awesome. And stressful :) 

In the morning, we did weekly planning in the morning for a few hours. At 5, the Zone Leaders came to our area and did an interview with Fatima. Then we booked it over to the church and started getting the church ready for a BAPTISM. The photo isn't very good, but it is good enough :)) My son got to baptize her! It was awesome. I love baptisms, but they stress me out.. sidenote: I am losing hair, which just makes me more stressed, which makes me lose more hair... it is quite the vicious cycle.

SATURADAY WAS LOCO. First off in the morning a member came to our house and installed a pull up bar which is dope, Imma get shredded ;) Then we left and chambiamos todo el dia, bien chevere. WE FOUND 8 NEW PEOPLE TO TEACH. And then 2 others that are looking very promising. And then the assistants called me and told me that they had 2 girls at a baptism of theirs and they live in our area and they are sooooo cool (segun..). It was just so cool to see God blessing us through small and simple things. I have been learning to be more bold on the mission. I really like this quote "What's bold today isn't bold tomorrow." Meaning what is hard and uncomfortable and bold today will become part of your nature tomorrow and it won't be bold, it'll just be normal. I like to think of this and always try to be bold, try new things, teach in new ways. Take some time this week and think about how you all can be bolder in sharing this amazing gospel. :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Elder Quist

Week 58 - DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (Day of the Dead)

HELLO AMERICA! HOW ARE YOU AND YOUR MIDTERM ELECTIONS DOIN'? 

So I forgot to mention last week that last Sunday I did not realize it was daylight savings (don't know why that isn't info given to missionaries because we kinda need to be on time to things...) and no one told me or my son so we did not change our clocks accordingly (and it should be mentioned that our peanut phone didn't change either) SO. What happened? This is what happened. We woke up at 6:30 am and got ready for church on Sunday and got ready fast, we prayed, left the house, out of the gate of our street, and up the hill to the taxis. Right in front of the taxi base is where they do the giant street market (Tianguis) on Sundays. I was asking myself in my mind why everyone was getting all of their shops ready a little later than normal, and why there weren't many people in the street...  We get in the taxi and are on the way to church - btw the church is about 45 minutes away walking so we use taxis, not just lazy - and I see the dash on of the taxi has a clock... it says 7:30 am... Here I am thinking it is 8:30 am... We get to the church an hour and a half early and I literally took a nap and then set up all the chairs and then chilled again for a while before ANYONE CAME IN... We woke up at 5:30 am... "Nice one Elder Quist."

Tuesday we had a district meeting. It was great. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that TUESDAY WAS LOCO. We had 2 baptisms planned for 7:30 pm that night of two little girls, both just barely turned 9 (one literally turned 9 on Tuesday haha), and they didn't have their interviews done yet. SO after the district meeting Elder Gonzalez, one of the zone leaders, went on divisions with my son (who does not communicate well in the Spanish language yet haha) to go do those and I went with the other zone leader Elder Peña in his area. It was super stressful. We had awesome divisions, but I needed to be back in my area to get the baptism ready. We got back in our area at 5:30 and in the church at 6:30. We had to fill the font, turn the boiler on, and clean the church a little bit and set up the chairs STAT. Long story short we ended up starting at 8:15 hahaha. It was awesome. :)

District photos

AVRIL AND MAYRIN GOT BAPTIZED

HALLOWEEN Y´ALL. Today was fun. Lots of work. Very productive.

Something I appreciate here in Mexico is that all efforts are made to find an excuse to party hard. For example, in America we have Halloween. In Mexico, they have Day of the Dead... and it is TWO days cause why not??

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS PARTE UNO: We had a very productive day. At the end of the day we watched "The Best Two Years" with some members and the dad made us Crepes filled with caramel. :))

PARTE DOS: We found this family that has a daughter on the mission, but no one else is a member in her fam and they are super interested and super cool. 

SUNDAY

Good day. Awesome way to end the week. We had crepes again. 4 hours of reporting today. My brain melted haha. I have heard that a ton of changes are coming to Mexico soon. I'll keep you updated!

Have an awesome week! I love you wonderful people of America.

Elder Quist

We met this boxer dude and took pictures with him and his class

Early morning Chalco pic

 Me this morning :))

Week 57 - A Day in the Life of a Missionary

Hi All!

I will just straight up quote the email of my good friend, Elder Crockett, from a few weeks ago because it perfectly relates to this week. 

Honestly I can't think of anything special that happened this week.  

It was a super long week.

Full of the normal missionary life.

Each day we get up early and go study our brains out. Still super tired and nodding off sometimes.

After that, we go out into the day and no one is home before lunch. 

It's super hot outside and I get sunburned at least every day hahaha.

Then we go eat lunch with a member who is kind enough to feed two hungry missionaries and give them something to drink.

And they don't stop feeding us...

Then we go back out with full stomachs looking for willing people who are looking for the gospel in their lives.

There are always drunks that yell at us and angry people as well.

And then there are the people that yell "May god bless you" as we go on our way.

Sometimes we will have appointments. Most often these appointments fall through. We go to their house and they say they are sleeping or don't have time.

We walk through the dirt streets of Mexico seeing hundreds of dogs in the streets each day.

Sometimes we will go to an appointment and they let us in for some strange reason. Sometimes we are able to share a message that reaches their hearts. Sometimes they begin crying. Sometimes they feel the spirit so strongly. And their heart starts burning inside. And they are grateful to have a God that is their loving Heavenly Father. 

Each day we see many things that are wrong with the world. 

Each day we see tiny little miracles that make us smile.

Then we go home at the end of a long day. Super tired and just ready to sleep. The day starts over and over again.

There are 730 of those days as a missionary.

There are good days and bad days.

But the good days are so good.

And the bad days are so bad.

But at the end of each day, we have made a difference in some peoples lives. The spirit has testified to them. And their lives are changed forever.

And it's worth it.

I love y'all! Enjoy your Halloween!

Elder Quist

Week 56 - Happiness is a Choice

Hey everyone! 

A lot happened (and didn't happen) this week. 

The Salas family: Ok y'all buckle up. SO. The Salas fam is the bomb. We met them my very first day here and they have been preparing for baptism since then and actually they are very prepared and excited to be baptized. The thing is they are not divorced and the divorce is ALMOST done, but something keeps delaying it. So every week in my emails I say "this week is gonna be awesome", but then something always happens. :/ BUT hopefully this week gets LOcO and they finally get wet. haha

Niños: We are going to baptize a couple kids soon (I think), the 30th. They are my homies.

Andrea: Also my homie. She met with the missionaries 3 years ago and wanted to get baptized, but she was living with her boyfriend so she couldn't. NOW she isn't! We have been meeting with her for awhile and teaching her but she never has been able to go to church (she works on sundays and her boss is a jerk and didn´t give her a break). BUT she finally changed jobs and this week she finally went to church!! It was sick. I was pumped. I was also freaking out because of a soon to be revealed "problem".

The Reyes family: We made a list of less active members to visit and came across this sweet fam. We visited them and we have had an enjoyable time getting to know them haha. The dad is crazy, looks like Einstien a lil bit, and is very confusing sometimes but super cool. And his wife is the bomb. She is super nice. They have a teenage daughter who is a genius. She is planning on working for NASA in a few years sooooo yeah. She told me her hobby is studying math #props. Also we are going to baptize their daughter and son, 10 and 8 years old.

Our "problem" was that there were only two Elders at church (well, that is normal) and THIRTEEN investigators came!!!! That is insane. It blew my mind. That was one of thee most hectic days I have had in a while.

I was listening to a Holland talk and this thought came into my mind: Happiness is just as much of a choice as discouragement. We wake up everyday and work and we can make the choice to be happy or sad. Always choose to be happy :)

Elder Quist

Companions - Elders Strunk and Quist

 Fellow LP Knights - Elders Quist and Rowberry