Week 18 - A Temple Trip and Transfers!

Hey Everyone! I hope everyone is doing well - that the snow isn't too bad. Let me tell ya, this 75 degree weather killer... This week was the last of this transfer AND the last week of my training!

Monday: Good day! We went to the store in the morning, then to the Garcia's where I made everyone cheese pancakes. (pics last week) They were bomb.

Tuesday: Just an awesome day! I taught a lesson in district meeting that was fire. Our day was full of appointments and almost everyone was home. So we were able to teach a lot. Super blessed.

Wednesday: Recently, I started reading "Jesus the Christ." It's super interesting and I would highly recommend reading it! We were rained out in the evening so I just read "Jesus the Christ" for awhile.

Thursday: We some good studying done in the morning, then later went to Chalco to the mission office to pick up some stuff.  Yolanda decided recently that she doesn't want to be baptized because she likes her saints too much. We have been a bit stumped as to what to teach her. If y'all have any ideas, let me know!

Friday: BEST day of the mission yet! So first of all, 4 months complete! Second, recently we have been preparing the Garcia's to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Two weeks ago we got permission to take them and watch. They got their recommends on Thursday and today we went! It gets better though. When we got to the temple, we found only 3 workers in the baptistry. So they asked US if we could help be witnesses AND baptize! I got to witness for Christopher and baptize Angeles. SO INCREDIBLE! The temple is such a cool place guys. Go often!

Saturday: Visited Irma the prophetess and she accepted a baptismal date! Pray we can get her in there.

Sunday: After church, the Garcia's invited us to their home to eat some pretty dang good Jello. Totally worth it. We met with some peeps we contacted, Gabriel and Daniella. Only talked for a few minutes, but they seem promising. Then - We went to the Stake Center and learned of our changes. I'm staying here and I'll most likely have a latino comp and Elder McDowell is going to Cuatla! It's been awesome being with him. I love that guy.

Well that's the news for this week. I hope y'all stay safe! I love and miss you all! God loves you!

-Elder Quist

 All the scrips McDowell has

This pic describes the Garcias perfectly - great family!

Week 17 - HOT WATER!

Hola All!

Last Monday, we had a zone party at our church. (I think I sent pics last week). It was sick. I love our zone. We are killing it with baptisms too! The rest of the day was chill.

Tuesday: We got to watch the press conference with our zone. President Russell M. Nelson: "Alright, well..." Rude reporter: "What about the women?" President Nelson: "We love 'em!" Guys, President Nelson is so cool! Read his talks. Listen to him. He has so many great ones!

Wednesday: Visited this super crazy, near blind guy... He is very interesting. I don't think we are going back. My comp needs to go renew his visa tomorrow, so he stayed in Chalco. I went on divisions for the night with Elder Oehler. It was super chill. He's a cool guy.

Thursday: Probably my best morning  of study since getting out into the field. After studies, we went on divisions with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Hatfield and now we're best friends.. Haha. We tight. Turns out we took spanish together when I was in 8th grade and he was in 9th. We flipped out because, I mean, what are the odds?? Then we finished divisions.

Friday: We were contacted by this lady that thinks she is a woman prophet and has been receiving revelations and visions from God since she came out of the womb. Her name is Irma. She is crazy.

Saturday: We had a few lessons that went pretty well. Then. The Garcia's helped us obtain a tank of gas so now we have HOT WATER!! One week left before we probably leave this area. :( We took the Prophetess to a baptism of the elders in the other ward. She claimed to have a vision during it, but besides that it was good!

Sunday: Church was good. Nothing exciting. After church, we had carnitas for lunch with a member. It was soooo good. We visited some people and set some new appointments. I contacted this really cool guy all by myself! Good day.

Good week! Lots of work done. My spanish is improving and I'm getting better at teaching. This is probably my last week in this area (we'll see??) and my LAST week of training! That'll be cool to finish training. Anyway, I miss y'all! Write me!

Have a great week!
Elder Quist

Our chapel

 cheese pancakes

Week 16 - Volcanoes and Baptisms: A Great Week!

Monday: The Garcia's took us to an ancient volcanic crater and made us dinner. Angeles taught us how to make a Lemon Pie. A good day.

Tuesday: We had interviews in Chalco with the President. It was good. President Zapata is a cool guy! Later, we went back to Chalco to a multi-zone meeting. 

Wednesday: Giovana took us to some friends she knows and we met this girl named Astrid. We taught her the Plan of Salvation... All the while her aunt was just breastfeeding her baby and it just got super awkward. haha. But she (Astrid) accepted a baptismal date!

Thursday: We had to go to Chalco to pick up some baptismal clothes. While we were there, I bought some new shoes. They are dope. Later, we had the baptismal interviews for Brenda and Ingrid and they both passed! I'm going to baptize Ingrid and my comp will baptize Brenda. It's going to be so cool! 

Friday: CONGRATS TO MAREN AND CODY! I LOVE YOU GUYS! Now don't have a baby until I get home. Please. Thank you. Also, we met this crazy lady named Susanna. More on her if she progresses.

Saturday: Brenda and Ingrid are baptized! So cool! When Ingrid was going in the water, she said it was cold, but after I asked how she felt. She said she isn't cold anymore, just super happy! Soooo cool. So blessed to be somewhere I can see 4 people be baptized within 40 days. 

Sunday: So there is this guy, Hermano Beto, in our ward who is super cool. So funny. He is a return missionary, like 30 years old. Just a super nice guy. We talked to him for an hour-is today. That was the daily highlight.

Long week, but a good week. 2 spiritual thoughts I want to share. 1, At funerals, the pallbearers are the people who were closest to the deceased. Those that carry the sacrament are literally pallbearers for the body of Christ. So to pass the sacrament, we must be close to Christ. And 2, Less of a spiritual thought, but the Articles of Faith are incredible. I highly suggest reading them again if you haven't in awhile! Anyway, this cycle ends the 29th and I'll be done training! I hope to stay in this area. It's super fun here. I really like working here. I miss y'all! 

Love ya! Write me!
E Quist

Week 15 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It was a good week. Super long though. I'm exhausted. I don't remember if I mentioned last week, but when we had a zone meeting, we changed our companionship goal from 5 baptisms this cycle to 10 baptisms. So we could use your prayers! Gracias. Anyway, my week...

Monday: Happy New Year! I'm spending all of 2018 in Mexico. Everyone go drunk so there was absolutely nothing open. We just sat in our house and literally just played UNO for a few hours. Our family night with the Garcia's was bomb, as always.

Tuesday: We taught this super stubborn catholic named Julio and we finally made progress. He asked why are there so many churches. We explained the difference between good and correct. It was a good lesson. After some other less successful appointments, we got some references from the Garcia's, we convinced them to eventually have another kid because we need more of them. haha!

Wednesday: Nothing happened. Sorry.

Thursday: Our lesson with the Jimenez fam was good. Their new baptismal date is January 13th. Pray for them, peeps. Gracias. Our lesson with Epigmenio was confusing... my spanish was bomb though. We watched "Ole!" about Ferdinand the Bull for Noche de Cine. Super funny actually. Then... TACOS!

Friday: So we were walking to lunch today and we saw this guy run out of his car with like a 2-liter beer bottle yelling about how his car was on fire. We then sat there and watched his car almost completely catch on fire. Mexico is wild!

Saturday: Our appointment fell through so we were walking back to our house when we saw this guy we know breaking up a sidewalk. So we stopped and helped him for 45 minutes. We broke up about 35 feet of concrete with sledgehammers. Pretty legit. Today, January 6th, is Dia de Los Reyes in Mexico, which is a bigger holiday than Christmas (and more comparable to Christmas in America). They have a tradition of eating Rosca de Reyes. When they bake it, they put a baby Jesus figurine in it. So when you eat it, whoever has the baby Jesus has to buy everyone tamales. I had the baby Jesus in my piece, of course. 

Sunday: Our first day with church starting at 8:30 am. The rest of the day was just visiting people and asking why they didn't come to church. haha. No one came to church. 

All in all, a good week. Thanks for your support and prayers.

Elder Quist

View from part of our area

Walking pic, just a street

  A bow and flower lucy gave me

chillin with Lucia

Week 14 - Still Haven't Been Robbed (Part 7)

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!! Christmas was great! Just hung out with the Garcia's and called the fam (love you guys!), and got some good presents!

Tuesday: We had a zone meeting today. It was pretty good. We changed our companionship goal to 10 (it was 5) baptisms this cycle. Later we met the Cruz Dueña Familia. We didn't get them to commit baptism, but hopefully soon.

Wednesday: We did splits today with Elder Santiz and Petersen. I was with Petersen. He's super chill. Almost at his 6 month mark, from Saratoga Springs. We walked soooo much today.

Thursday: Super busy day. So we have been trying to meet with this one lady for weeks and today finally worked out! Turns out she has been/is a missionary for the Catholic church for 33 years. hahaha. She was like, "Yeah, just so it's clear, I'm not interested at all." Then she talked for an hour about how all churches lead to Christ... no baptismal date for her, but she actually gave us a good reference!

Friday: Second lesson with Cruz Dueñas, better than the first. Still no baptismal date, but they are progressing. We committed this 80 year old, Epigmemo, to baptism! He live along and like to walk around the park and talk to people. He believes that the Book of Mormon is another Bible, but that'll be easy to fix!

Saturday: Alright so I started the day with donuts and ended with tacos, so I'm living it up down here in Mexico City. A lot of appointments, but not too much success. Not a horrible day though!

Sunday: Happy New Year Eve!! We had 40 people at church today which was kind of sad, but was bueno. We went to a zone party in Chalco for the night, it was sick. This member made us tacos and we just chilled and then broke some piñatas - don't worry, I killed it. That piñata had no chance when I got in there.

Really good week in all honesty. We got money for the next month so my taco obsession/problem is back alive. We found 4 new investigators and whole bunch more contacts (yikes, that grammar is bad), so this next week should be exciting! I realized on Sunday that I really miss church in America. Like, having only priests bless the sacrament, lots of youth, people care about their callings (only the bishop is there on time - his counselors show up 10 minutes late), and people actually coming to church. Sidenote, the Relief Society President has a baby chihuahua and it was just walking around the whole time. It was easily the highlight of my day. I love you all!!

-Elder DQ

Happy New Year from México!!

Week 13 - Christmas 2017

Merry Christmas! This was a slow week, but it ended good! We committed Brenda and Ingrid and Yolanda to baptism again for January 13th so pray for us that they can follow through! Christmas was the bomb, I love my fam! It was the besttttt to talk to you guys for an hour-ish, I can't wait for May! I love you guys! I pray for y'all! Write me! 

Elder Quist

1st Try - Not a great connection - it was touch and go. But so happy to see that smile!! Tried for 20 minutes to figure it all out. 

Then thanks to the Garcia Family, we got to see and hear our boy! Doing fantastic in México! Love him!

Week 12 - Ilumina el Mundo!

Still haven't been robbed (Part 5) -

Lunes: Happy Birthday Millie! I love you! Today was p-day - we did the usual. Then we went boxing. Well, I didn't because I didn't want to die. 

Martes: We taught the lesson today with the Garcia's! It went really well, mostly because they already know everything. We taught them about the Priesthood and ended up explaining the Abrahamic Covenant. They completely understood, so that was cool! Then we taught the lesson to Susanna too. 

Miércoles: Long day. We tried to find someone's house for a long time, but I think they gave us a fake address. Lunch was bomb. We had some again.

Jueves: The Garcia Family literally invited us to the other side of the state of Mexico for a New Year's Eve party with their family. Haha! Love them. We watched "Polar Express" for Noche de Cine. Tom Hanks is a legend.

Viernes: Studied a lot this morning and I finally finished the Book of Mormon in English again! I started 9 weeks ago. We had 2 lunch appointments. I gained 10 lbs. from that....

Sábado: So we taught La Familia Garcia again. Note: They buy us sweet bread overtime we come over. We had our "Ilumina el Mundo" (Light the World) activity tonight. Our entire zone did it together which was sick - We have an awesome zone! I love them. We set up a ton of tables in the palacio (like a town square) for people to bring clothes to donate and we had ponche and stole (apple cider-isa and hot chocolate-ish) for free. We also had Christmas videos playing. We even had an elder dress up as Santa - we went the whole 9 yards. Between 6:30 and 9 pm, we had about 600 people come. We got enough clothes to fill 2 pickup trucks. Super cool! BTW! So we showed up to the church after lunch and this girl, about 16, was there. Felt like she should go to the church right then and we showed up 5 minutes later.... no such things as coincidences!

Domingo: Christopher received the Aaronic Priesthood today! Only 2 weeks after baptism... insane stuff. Not much other than that to report!

I've seen a few miracles this week. Really awesome, testimony building week! I highly recommend living in the ghetto part of a super ghetto city. Super fun stuff. I love y'all! I pray for you guys every day! Let me know how it's going! I miss you all (even if you don't write me... ;)) Peace.

- Davis

The Garcias gave each of us blankets and two scarfs.

 They also made us a wreath.

 Comps - me and Elder McDowell

 With Elder Santiz

Elder Freitas' last Sunday!

Week 11 - Happy in Valle de Chalco!

Hey all! It's been a good week! 

Last p-day we took a combi to Chalco, but got out too early and ended up walking for an hour to a stake center. We played football again with a couple of other zones. It was fun. Afterwards, we went to an incredible restaurant. Soooo good! Later that evening, we had FHE with  Giovanna and these 2 girls (her neighbors), Fatima who is 9 and Melanie who is 11. Both girls have been to church a bunch, but their parents haven't let them be taught.... until now! So that is awesome! 2 new investigators.

Tuesday: We went to Amecameca for a meeting for everyone who is in their 1st cycle. So I got to see Elder Peterson (my MTC comp) again! Fun times. Except... well... let's just say I go t Montezuma's Curse... So that was not so fun. After we got back, we taught the Jimenez family. It was so good! We watched a shortened version of a video about the Restoration. Also, we found out that on the corner by their house, someone died last night. There was a small gang fight or something like that... so that's sick. But no worries. It was like 2 am so we are safe. :)

Wednesday: I taught 2 lessons today! So that's exciting. We spent the morning prepping for the lessons. I taught the Garcia's about family history and temple work. Turns out they mad a family tree account last week and already have made a family tree. So basically they are amazing! I love them. Later, I lead an FHE which went well too!

Thursday: A normal day, nothing much to report. We watched "Coco" for the kids movie night. First Pixar movie originally made in spanish, so that's cool!

Friday: So basically we baptized the coolest people! My comp is a little allergic to cats and the Garcia's have cats. So they deep clean their home before we come. They know I like sweet bread so they get us some every lesson. And many other things make them the best! 

Saturday: We did some service for one of our neighbor's who is a member. Easy stuff for a strapping young man like myself! haha We went to the temple again today. Our zone rented a bus and we took investigators and recent converts. We brought Giovanna, Fatima and Melanie. There wasn't any room for us missionaries to sit so we just stood in the aisle for the 1 1/2 hour bus ride. But the temple was amazing! A little chilly, but it was nice. Reminded me of Temple Square. We had tacos after. I love them so much!

Sunday: Learned a lot in church today, but not many investigators came though. Lunch was bomb. A funny experience at church... So Christopher said the closing prayer and he started by saying, "Buenas Tardes Padre Celestial..." which is like saying "Good afternoon Heavenly Father." He's  awesome! 

I'm still loving life here! Interesting facts about living here in the ghetto: I shower out of a bucket that I warm up with a resistencia; the lights dim when we plug too many things into the outlets (which happens a lot); literally no one has carpet here; I'm 99% sure there is not a single pure bread dog in this city; Christmas isn't huge here - they celebrate King's Day in January. Anyway, more Mexico facts coming soon. Love y'all! Praying for ya!

-Elder Quist

1st Cycle Meeting

a pic of the city

 Personal Study Time

 And more Kool-aid. It matches our walls!

Week 10 - A Taco Problem and the First Baptism!

Hey All! 

It's been a good week! Here's a run down:

Monday: Good p-day. We went to the Soriana for groceries. Soriana is kind of like the mexican Walmart. Here, Walmart is where the wealthy people go. haha! Just a chill p-day, washed clothes, emailed, went to a panaderia (pretty much a bakery with super good bread). After p-day ended (6:00 pm), we watched a gospel movie with Giovanna and after... it got freaky. So her house is almost 100% haunted. She told us some freaky stories and Elder Freitas (he is leaving in 2 weeks and has been in plenty of haunted houses) said as soon as we entered the house, it felt, even smelled, evil. So that was weird.

Tuesday: Slow day. District Meeting in the morning. And walked A LOT today. We had Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) and that was lots of fun! After, Elders Freitas, Santiz, McDowell and I went for tacos.... Soooo, so good!

Wednesday: Had another lesson with the Garcia family! They are awesome. Elder Santiz came to interview them for baptism. (they both passed. Yay!) They are thee happiest, nicest, most generous people in the world. Later that afternoon, we met with the Jimenez family. Our lessons are interesting.... Good, but they just go a completely different direction. Then we got more tacos.

Thursday: Met with the Jimenez family again. Good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Later, we met with Julio Llevada (yay-vah-duh), a guy we contacted inside an Elektra store. He worships Judas Tadeo, but has doubts. He really likes us and loved hearing about the Restoration! Fingers crossed. Noche de Cine tonight for the local kids. Then we got tacos again. haha. Oh I forgot to add: we forgot our keys in the apartment so we climbed onto the roof of our neighbors apartment and climbed onto our roof then down the stairs. Then we broke into our apartment. 

Friday: Killed at the gym, got some good cereal and cleaned the font at the church. Good morning! We (all 4 of us Elders) had lunch with the Garcia's. After lunch, we picked up a few more people, and  went to the temple! It was super cool to walk through the Visitor's Center and see all the lights. We got tacos afterwards... I have a taco problem.

Saturday: Amazing day! We got to the church about 10 am and started prepping for the baptism! I had the opportunity to baptize Christopher. Such a cool experience! First try too which almost surprised me. Remembering the name, the prayer, and to not drown him wasn't easy. My companion baptized Angeles. SUCH A COOL THING! 

Sunday: So I was invited to confirm Christopher today in sacrament meeting, but I felt my spanish isn't good enough. But I did help my companion do both which was cool. We had 3 people come to church who want us to teach them, which is crazy. Two of them want to be baptized too! We could have 4-5 baptisms next Saturday. So pray for us! Later that night we watched the Christmas Devotional with Giovanna.

As far as I am concerned, I am doing great! I'm always tired, but that's pretty normal. I miss the fam and friends too. Anyway, I'm praying for y'all! Email me! Love ya!

Elder Quist

Elders Quist, McDowell, Freitas, Santiz

Baptism!

Week 9 - Dreams, Biscuits and Crickets

Hey there! How's it going? I'm doing great here, just doing the work of the Lord.  I'm starting to like living here a lot more which makes everything easier.  Elder McDowell and I get along really well, so that's good. So fun fact - During the day, all the stray dogs (there are so many) are nice, but at night they are terrifying! But I'm never scared; more exciting, than anything. Haha. So on with my week...

Tuesday: Great day! We had interviews in Chalco with President Zapata. He's so cool! Love him. After, for comp study, we watched the movie, "The Testaments." It's super cool! Everyone, go watch it. Then we went to the cyber cafe and learned about teaching/finding investigators using family history. It was interesting. Later we had a lesson with Solanda, Brinda and Ingrid. Only Brinda accepted a baptismal date, but all 3 are new investigators! Then we met with Enrique Hernandez, who also accepted a baptismal date. So we have 7 investigators now! Kinda insane.

Wednesday: So we haven't notice the Garcia's wearing wedding rings yet and we were nervous that they weren't married (pretty common here). So to find out we just taught them about chastity. Haha. And luckily they are married! Good start to the day. Then the Bishop's wife went around with us and showed us some less actives, some with kids we may be able to baptize. We had lunch with Giovanna. Later, we went to get our clothes which were being washed and found the washer was broken. So we spend 1 1/2 hours hand washing our clothes. That was fun.

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! We woke up early and met 3 other zones in Chalco and played American football. Fun times! Later, we went on splits. I was with Elder Santiz, my district leader. 

Friday: Super interesting day! So we taught the Garcia's about the word of wisdom and we were nervous because Angeles drinks coffee. Well, we taught them and she said that she'll quit coffee because she doesn't love it anyway! Btw, in our ward, the members can't have Coke if they want a temple recommend... ?? Anyway, after our lesson, we helped Christopher in his garden for an hour. We are homies. At lunch, we had a cinnamon Atole, the mexican equivalent of hot chocolate in America. Soooo good! I love it! Later, we visited the Jimenez family (Brinda, Solanda, Ingrid) and well, story time -- The reason Ingrid (she's 10) can't get baptized is because her father doesn't like the church. Well, the night after our 1st lesson with them, he had a dream that Satan was tempting him and tried to pull him into hell. He woke up (worth noting that he says this wasn't a dream) terrified and he promised to go to church. We didn't go in the room because everyone says his room feels evil. But we did bless the house. A first. Weird experience, but cool. 

Saturday: Super slow day. Woke up early and cleaned the church. I'm kinda pro at mopping now! Spent most of the day preparing talks for Sunday. Sadly appointments fell through. So there are these carts that go around all day and night selling biscuits for $3 pesos... super cheap. We heard the biscuit cart (they play jingles) and sprinted out of our apartment and ran down the street. We bought 13 biscuits! Oh sweet mercy, they were good.

Sunday: Gave a talk today. It think it went well. We ate dinner with some members. Then visited with Giovanna later. I tried chapoline (crickets) -- actually not bad, to be honest.

All in all, a great week! I love you all and pray for you!

Elder Quist

Biscuits!

Me and Elder Freitas

with the whole gang - Elders McDowell and Santiz

Week 8 - Happiness is a Choice

Hi All!

Well I'm doing well here. I still can't believe that I've been here for 2 weeks! Crazy! So after p-day last week, we had FHE with the ward. Super fun!

Last Tuesday: AMAZING DAY!! So cool. 10 days at that point and it's already so worth it! Ok to start, we had a ton of appointments today, like 5 to 6. We ended up not being able to teach any of them because only one of them were home. His name is Christopher Garcia and his wife, Angeles. They are amazing. They said that normally they wouldn't stop to talk to us in the street, but they felt peaceful and happy when we stopped them. They felt that it was God telling them to listen. After talking, they committed to baptism! So cool! I don't know spanish very well, but I could understand enough to see that they knew how special the gospel is!

Wednesday: Unfortunately, we had appointments fall through. But later in the day, we had a meeting with Hermano Roman, the ward mission leader.

Thursday: We walked 10-12 miles today, but it was such a good day. We had a lesson with Susanna. She has been taught all the lessons, but never kept any commitments. We visited her and talked and bore our testimonies and she committed to baptism! So that was awesome. Then we did a contacting activity with Elder Garcia and contacted like 20 people in an hour. 

Friday: We went to this super cheap gym this morning. It costs 10 pesos, which is about 50 cents in America. Later that morning, we taught the Garcia family again. It was soooo amazing. I love them. The rest of our day was full of appointments that fell through, so that was fun. Every Friday, we show a movie for local kids. 

Saturday: We tried to go to the gym again, but it was closed. So we ended up playing basketball at the church. Afterwards we cleaned the church. We had our studies, lunch, then more studies before we visited some less actives.

Sunday: REALLY good day today guys. Before church, we had our studies and I finished Alma. We had 5 investigators come to church! Giovanna brought her aunt. And the Garcia Family came (Christopher, Angeles and their daughter, Lucia) and Mariella (Angeles' daughter from her 1st marriage). So cool! Such a great experience! Later we went to Giovanna's house and watched "Ephraim's Rescue." Good day.

Well, this week has been awesome! Really eye opening. I wish that I could understand everyone better, but I know it will come. I have learned that no matter what, everyone can find a way to be happy. Since I've gotten to the field, it has bugged me that all these people living in poverty have TV's and nice phones. But I think that it is because they don't need more than what they have to be happy. They don't need nice homes. It has taught me a lot about humility. Well I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Q 


*This was included in his mom's letter (a little missionary chastisement to his family) and needed to document for his future self😜... "You know, the longer I go without a phone, the more liberated I feel. I think we spent a ton of time on technology. I think if everyone would use a little bit less, everyone would be happier." 

 We had a Kool-aid party!

 a parade by our house

 Main street of Chalco