Hey everyone! This week has been really great! We've refocused our efforts here in Ocotlan back on the less-active members. And it has shown great results. Mexico has a huge problem. Nearly 70% of the members are inactive. Our Branch President is making a huge effort to bring everyone back, and it is showing a lot of fruit. We had the largest attendance at church yesterday that we've had here for about 2 years.

President Navarro gives us about 3 families at a time to focus on, and when they either show progress or disinterest, he gives us a few more. We're starting to see another large family here starting to reactivate, a few more people each week. These families are huge. It’s basically a whole block is one family, and each door is just another brother or sister. It’s great! 

We've also been having a lot of success finding new investigators through the members, especially those less-active members that are starting to come back. We are now teaching two investigators that are spouses to less-active members. How great it will be if we can get these families to the temple! They have so much potential, and there is so much more to be found!

We have three investigators with baptismal dates. Federico is still progressing very well, and is well on his way to be baptized December 10th. We just set a date with Jaime. He is living here is Mexico by himself, without family, and without many friends. The church, and especially the friendship of the members will help him so much! His date is January 9th. The last one is a little different. Hermana Guadalupe has been a member for about 7 years, but her baptismal records were lost, so we get to rebaptize her. It is this weekend. I'll try to remember to bring my camera!

My time is almost up as a trainee. Elder Taveras heads home December 14, one week early, because of the holiday airport confusion. It's crazy. Soon I'll be leading this area... and the scariest part now is talking on the telephone. It’s almost impossible to tell what people are saying when it’s through that little chunk of plastic. But it'll be good.

My scripture this week is 2 Nephi 33:4 "And I know that the Lord God will consecrate my prayers for the gain of my people. And the words which I have written in weakness will be made strong unto them; for it persuadeth them to do good; it maketh known unto them of their fathers; and it speaketh of Jesus, and persuadeth them to believe in him, and to endure to the end, which is life eternal."

This week has been very good. Thank you all for your support in the missionary effort. I love you all, and I can't wait to talk to you all next week. If I can extend an invitation to you all, I ask you to look out for one of your neighbors or friends this week, and tell them that you love them. But don't only tell them, mean it. I hope you all have a great week. Until next time!

Love, 

Elder Quinn

This was my Thanksgiving feast; the ever present pasta, chicken nuggets, sweet bread, and 7-up. Pretty grand!!!  It was a little less exciting here. E Taveras and I didn't do anything. 

But I made some food for me, and he went to bed early haha.

Wow... week 15. It feels like I've been here for much less than that. People say that time flies when you’re on the mission, and I'm sure that I don't truly understand it yet, but I can definitely feel it. This week has definitely been a step up from last week. I feel like we've been in a hole as for as work effort these past two weeks. And this past week we've been climbing ourselves back out. Still not quite back to full speed, but getting there.

This week has been a little wild with our investigators. We've had to move a few of them into "old investigators", because they won't progress or come to church. It's really a sad moment, but there is a point when we have to refocus our efforts and time on those that are progressing. And also our most progressed investigator, Francisco, just dropped his baptismal date. At the beginning of the week he was showing super great signs of faith and progression, but when Sunday came, he almost cut it off with us. But we had a real nice prayer with him in the chapel and he decided to keep thinking about it. It’s been a rollercoaster with him this week. We have an appointment with him today, and we'll see exactly where he stands.

We have another investigator, Federico, who is really showing great commitment. His only problem is that he likes to spend the lessons telling us stories of his insane childhood. This guy has had some crazy experiences! But he is basically ready, and I can already see his conversion taking form. "I can see him standing in the water." He has only missed one Sunday, and it was because he lives in a distant town and had no way to get to the church.

We're going to be focusing this week on a few of these investigators, but mostly on reactivating less-active members. The ward leaders here are awesome, and are really taking the initiative of "rescuing one more friend", based off "the lost sheep" parable. It’s really great.

We had a great lesson with a part member family. The parents aren't married because a previous divorce hasn't happened yet, but their daughter has been baptized. We taught them about the temple, and how families could be together forever, and that this is really what we as missionaries want for every person we come in contact with. We took a cereal box, turned it inside out, and glued a picture of the SLC temple to it. We placed it above their TV so that they would never lose sight of the temple, and always remember what their goal was. That was a great lesson. 

We also had a great experience yesterday. And it helped me understand what peace the gospel can bring. We have an investigator named Jaime, or Jimmy. He lost basically his whole life in the States, his job, his home, and his wife and kids. He now lives by himself in a one room brick apartment, about the same size as the girl’s room. We happened to pass by, and we didn’t have an appointment or even a plan, but we knocked anyways. He answered in a slurred voice and let us in. It then became very apparent what was going on, due to the half empty beer bottle by his bed. We asked how his day was, and he told us that he was doing fine. But I can feel, every time we've entered his home, that it is a lonely place. His only family lives in the states. The only people we've seen him associate with are our ward mission leader, his boss, and another teenage kid, who I wouldn't be surprised is just his drug dealer. We had a short lesson, and we basically told him of the peace and love he could attain through the gospel, but particularly in church attendance and that there are other people that are trying too. I just want to be his friend, or to get some member to be his friend, so that he has someone to rely on. I finished the lesson with a prayer and he was crying before I finished. I’m not sure if drunk people can feel the Spirit, but I think he felt something. His loneliness and sadness was almost palpable. 

If you could pray for Francisco, Federico, and Jaime. I think they are the ones that need the most blessings right now.

Mission life is great. I feel like I'm really starting to get a hang of it. And it definitely helps that I'm actually starting to understand most everyone. The Spanish is really coming along, and I have never been more thankful for the Gift of the Spirit. I know that the Gift of Tongues is really strengthening me here.

Last thing: This week I found the General Conference edition of the Liahona from this spring. The missionary homes are full of Liahonas. It’s great! I've loved reading and studying the inspired words. We are so blessed to have Prophets and leaders to guide us in these days. And their words are truly to help build us up, especially as families. This has led me to choose this scripture to ponderize this week. D&C 1:38 "What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." The words of the Lord are still being spoken today, and it is great council for us, to guide us through the problems and confusions of the modern days.

This really has been a great week, and I'm so thankful for the work that I am a part of. I wish you all a great week, and eat as much as you can for me during Thanksgiving! I'm grateful for all your support in me and all the other missionaries around the world. Thank you, and I'll talk to you all next week!

Love, 

Elder Kaden Quinn

November 16, 2015

Hey everyone! Another P-Day. Man, this week has seemed unusually long. And it was probably because it was one of our weakest weeks yet, as far as numbers go. We had a few days this week that were really slow. But it was still a pretty fine week.

We had our most impressive Sunday showing yet. We had about 10 investigators we thought were going to come. But only 6 came. But still, 6 are way more than our previous high of 2. And we had 74 people at Sacrament. A few of the active families didn't come, but we had quite a few less-active members show up. It was really great. There is one family that was been inactive for a while now, but they are starting to come back more and more. Every week they seem to bring another one of their sons and his family. Their family is about 1/4 of our ward haha, and they still have more to bring. They are great.

We now have two investigators with baptismal dates! Francicso is in two weeks on November 28, and Federico is December 10th. I'm 99.9999% sure with Francisco. He's really great, and shows a lot of faith for all the effort he puts into listening to us and attending church. Federico is also really promising, but we haven’t had many lessons with him yet. 

We have a few new investigators and have been working with an eternal investigator family. Angelica and Jimmy both work for Hmo. Victor, our Branch Mission Leader. We met them when we met up with Victor to accompany us. Angelica is actually an old investigator of the area, but she accepted our visits too. She is really smart, and very accepting of the Gospel. She knows that it is something good, and I really hope that we can progress with her. Jimmy is a great, noble guy. He lost basically his whole life in the States, and now lives here all by himself. I really think that the Church can be a new family for him, that he can rely on. One of our Branch Presidency really wants to get to know him, become friends, and get bring him in. The Gospel is going to bring a lot of comfort into his life, I'm sure.

Ok, last thing. We had the opportunity this last Saturday to go to the Temple in Guadalajara. It was sooo great! Man, the feeling of the temple is like nothing else. It isn’t a lie that it is a part of heaven on earth. What an amazing blessing we have to be able to attend the temple. And the blessings that we receive in the temple give so much hope. It’s great to remember that our ultimate goal as missionaries is to help these people and these families become families for eternity. What an incredible message of happiness!

My scripture this week is Alma 19:6 " Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that King Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God—"

The language is coming much better. It isn’t nearly as big as a challenge now, but it’s still a little hard. I don’t have a very huge vocabulary, but I can usually follow most conversations.

I love you all! Thank you for all your support in me and all the other missionaries in the work. Have an amazing week, and I'll talk with you guys next week!

Love,

Elder Quinn

The Guadalajara Temple, small but beautiful!

And I made peanut butter french toast and eggs one day. It was a nice change from cereal.

November 9, 2015

Hey everyone. This week has been long. But not all that much happened. I think this was the first week that I haven't seen President Egginton haha! But overall, it’s been alright. We didn’t have very impressive numbers this week, nor did it feel like we did, that’s why it felt long. And we walked a lot. 

 

We found a few new investigators this week through referrals from members. We don't have much success from contacting here. Most everyone we talk to is willing to talk about Christ and the Gospel, but as soon as we ask if we can teach a lesson, they just close off to us, because "I have no time to talk to you" or "I'm Catholic". But most of our referrals have been pretty rewarding. We talked to the father of one of the Stake Counselors, and he wants to meet with us. He's actually been reading the Book of Mormon on his own! Not only that, but he studies the Bible and the BoM for two hours every day. I'm excited to talk to him again.

 

We've had a bit of a struggle with a few of our investigators. We haven't been able to catch one of them for about 2 and a half weeks. And another is interested in the BoM and likes to learn about the church, but doesn't want to pray, doesn't want to see how church is, nothing. It’s a little frustrating. We actually have many people who just don't want to do anything. They’re fine with us coming and talking with them, but in between visits, us nor our message exists. 

 

But overall, it’s been a fine week. We had the highest church attendance this Sunday yet since we've been here. One inactive family that we've been working with brought 15 people! And we have 3 investigators come as well. Hermano Francisco Fuentes is still on track to being baptized on the 28th of this month. That will be awesome!

 

It’s still really hot here in Ocotlan, but every once in a while, we get cool days that actually feel a little bit like Utah fall days. It’s good here. Elder Taveras and I are still working hard. I'm had many people ask me if he's died yet, but he still goes 110%. We’re doing good. Also, my scripture this week is Enos 1:4 "And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry untbyo him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens." I've been thinking a lot about the power of prayer this week.

 

Everyone, I love you all. And I love hearing from you. Thank you for all the support and prayers. Have an amazing week!! Tomorrow

 

Love,

Elder Kaden Quinn

Hey everyone! The week has been pretty great. It finally feels like we are getting somewhere. We have one progressing investigator with a baptismal date for November 28. His name is Francisco Fuentes and he is so awesome. He's blind, and already has his answer that we are representatives of Jesus Christ. It was actually pretty funny. He said he had a dream, and he heard a voice saying that he should "listen to my messengers". So he looked around but couldn't see where the sound had come from. He then explained that he could see in his dreams, of course. Haha! I'm super excited, because he'll probably be my first baptism and Elder Taveras' last one.

We had a missionary activity this last Saturday, Halloween day. We watched Meet The Mormons. We contacted so many people. Every one of our investigators, every member we ate with, All the less-active members, everyone. We invited so many people to come. Well the night came, and about 15 people showed up. We had one less-active family, no investigators, and the Branch Presidency and family. It was a little rough. But the next day, we had two investigators show up to church, which was a record for me haha. One was Hmo Francisco and the other was Hma Magdalena. But it still was pretty good. We had a few people tell us that they couldn’t come, but watched it the next day on their own.

Hermana Magdala is one of our harder investigators. She is the wife of the Mission Leader, and has heard from the missionaries for about 13 years now. She is really warm and receptive to us, but she has no desire to get baptized. We have to somehow just her to want to read the BoM and to get baptized. She believes in God, Jesus Christ, and she thinks that our message is good. But she doesn’t want to read or know that it’s true. It’s a little rough with her. But we're going to keep trying with her.

We also had divisions this week with the Zone Leaders. Elder Benitez came here to Ocotlan with me, while Elder Taveras went to Chapala with Elder Hogge. It was rough. E Benitez is a great missionary, but he treated me like a normal missionary, which was really hard, because I barely know what I'm doing haha. And we definitely got lost at least twice, but it went pretty well.

Overall, this week has been pretty good. Halloween is basically non-existent here. And Day of the Dead is just alters, parades of people with face-paint, and people visiting graveyards. It’s a little creepy actually. And it’s actually today, November 2nd. But the members here don’t really do much for this holiday. And neither do we.

The Spanish is actually progressing so much. It’s been so much better. I'm still struggling on my part of speaking though. And with understanding, it’s either about 70% I understand or nothing haha!

It rained the other day; Friday I think, but nothing bad. It really hasn't rained real hard here yet. We've had much more in SoJo than here. 

Oh and also, my scripture this week is one that President Egginton shared this morning during a training for the greenies in my generation. 1 Nephi 4:6 "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." Definitely something I need to work on, confiding more in the guidance of the Spirit.

Well, I hope you all have had a great week, and have another fabulous one this week. Love you all, thank you so much for all your love and support, and I'll talk to you all next week!!

Love,

Elder Kaden Quinn

Hey everyone!! This week has been a little different than normal. For one, it's rained quite a bit. And we haven't been able to get out and work all that much this week. But it’s still been a pretty good one.

We spent last Monday and Tuesday in Ajijic with the Zone Leaders. Another companionship in our Zone came too. It was pretty nice. Monday night we had the chance to attend a Family Home Evening in Ajijic with a family from Canada. Only the dad speaks Spanish, and the rest were English speakers. I felt right at home haha! It was like being back in Utah for two hours. And we had ice cream, which was marvelous! 

The rest of the week was normal until early Thursday morning. I got really sick. I won't go into detail, and I hope you'll appreciate that, but it was not nice. We ended up not leaving the house that day because I couldn't stand for very long without feeling like I was going to die. So we just spent the day watching every church movie we had. We watched Meet the Mormons twice, in Spanish and English. The next day I was feeling a lot better, so we decided to go out. But around 12:30 we got a text from our Zone Leaders that we couldn't leave the house after 4 pm because there was a hurricane or something on the coast. I'm not exactly sure what the problem was, because I couldn't quite understand what my companion was saying. He has this great habit of saying things even faster when I ask him to repeat himself. It's just great.

(When we told Kaden that it was a very large hurricane that passed right over him, his response was: Oh wow.... haha well that’s nice to know haha. I have no access to any sort of news here. And the information I do get is meddled in the translation haha!)

Friday was another day without many results. So we've spent the last two days trying to do everything we can to achieve our goals for the week. We got pretty dang close too!

But overall this week has been pretty good. We watched an inning of baseball waiting for one of our investigators, we've has some pretty good food (more tacos, tacos duro, this amazing carne vegetable slosh stuff that we don't know the name of, gorditas), and some great experiences. We also had our District Conference this Sunday. It’s the equivalent of Stake Conference, but we're not a Stake. We got to meet a lot more people, and President and Hermana Egginton were there. They took pictures to put on the "Facebook Celestial" they have. But that’s about it.

I've understood Spanish a lot more, and I really noticed during the Conference when I actually could follow a few of the talks. But of course it’s easier when they are talking about the church the whole time! It's coming along and progressing, but it’s still a challenge. But it’s getting better. I can really start to see hope at the other end of the tunnel for my Spanish haha!

We’ve had some good lessons. The best was with the blind investigator, he is really awesome and receptive. Also, the son of one of the less-active members died this week. We visited them, had a great lesson about the Atonement. Hermana Rodrigues gave the prayer at the end, cried, and the Spirit was strong. They ended up coming to the Conference with a lot of their family too!

Faith has been the biggest change here for me on the mission. Faith, and the direct blessings I've received because of it. And the weakness thing, it’s so true. We are so weak. But one of my favorite chapters is when Ammon and his brothers return from their missions, and he boasts in the Strength of the Lord. It’s a truly great chapter!!

I love you all, and I love hearing from you! Thank you for all your prayers, and you're always in mine!! Have an amazing week!

Love, 

Elder Kaden Quinn

1- Elder Taveras is fascinated with the trains haha! Every time it passes we have to stop and watch for a few minutes.

2- The sun rise in Ajijic off Lake Chapala.

Found a little lizard outside our house. Pretty cool.  Apparently they are everywhere, but this is the first I've seen.

Saltines and Electrolytes for days!!

And proof that I'm still alive! This was even the day after I got sick, so yeah.

 P.S.- that day, I lost 6 pounds.... !!!!!

Holy cow, what a crazy week. We've done a lot of traveling this week. Every week we travel to Ajijic for our District and Zone meetings, but this week we also had interviews with President Egginton, so we went to Ajijic twice. That was great. He is such an awesome guy! And after he took us out to dinner and I had a pretty dang good steak. We also had the awesome opportunity to listen to a seminar by President Durant. He was the one who gave the "ponderizing" talk in this General Conference. It was great. He talked a lot about missionary work and helped us to ask better questions. And man is he tall!! So anyway, we spent a lot of time this week on the bus.

We are progressing with a few investigators, but we have none with baptism dates. We do almost all our work in reactivation, we have so many less-active members. When we showed up, we had no investigators to go off of. There hasn't been a baptism for about 8 months in this branch. Our church is an actual LDS building, but its tiny compared to our building. We have about 45 members every Sunday.

We've been able to find quite a few new investigators this week. And we've met a lot of great people. A few of them know a little bit of English, and during our lessons they try to practice on me. It's almost as hard to understand as the Spanish haha! But it’s great!

Also, I just want to make sure you guys definitely know; the food here is amazing. This one family sells these tortas (toasted sandwiches from heaven) that are absolutely to die for. And another one of the members sons runs a taco cart, and oh my goodness. It was fantastic! The street tacos are absolutely amazing!

One other nice surprise is that the electricity in our apartment keeps going out. The breaker sometimes just doesn't work. And yesterday, it just quit. So we have to get the landlord to fix it. But it will just be flashlights until then! And cold showers, because we start our boiler with toilet paper and our electric stove haha!

It hasn't rained all that much. But yeah, we just go out and do work. The roads turn to a muddy mess. Most of them are just cobblestone and dirt. But it’s only rained three times, and two of them were at night.

Well everyone, it’s starting to get better. The Spanish is still a struggle, but it's not nearly as big of a burden as before. I'm starting to understand more and more every day. And the work is actually going places. We've finally gotten past the second lesson with an investigator, and we've had less-active members coming to church. And the love you can feel from the branch is amazing. The people here are so great!

Thank you all again for your support. I love hearing from you all, and knowing that I have so many people at home supporting the work is a great comfort. I love you all, and have a fantastic week!!

Elder Kaden Quinn

Week 9, wow. Man, so much has happened! We just barely finished contacting all our references from the Church Headquarters and from other people. We've been running all over Ocotlàn and every colony around it. Our area isn't huge, but we have members and investigators in the farthest outskirts of the colonies. And the public transportation here only covers the Centro where we live, but there are only like 3 members here. The first couple days here, we made the mistake of not organizing our contacts, so we basically walked from one end of our zone to the next. We're very particular of scheduling visits by colony now haha!

But overall, to be honest, this week has been rough. I hadn't been feeling like my Spanish had progressed at all. Almost every lesson, I would sit there until Elder Taveras needed a testimony of something. And especially yesterday, after church, we had our comp study for the day, and we were studying how to begin a first lesson with someone. Elder Taveras expressed that he wanted me to do all the talking in this part for our lessons, and I very strongly expressed to him that I could not, because I could not understand people. He then told me how I was supposed to be here, and that the things we teach are spiritually inspired. That we teach with the power of God, and that I needed to have more faith and confidence in the Lord. He promised that if I had the faith to talk, I would understand. Let it suffice to say that I left that evening feeling even worse and that I was totally going to fail. But of course, God works in ways that man cannot understand. I'll continue in a little bit.

This week we found two new golden investigators. They were prepared for the Word. The first was Hma. Eliza. She was a reference, but when we got to her house she didn't want to hear our message. Her reason was that her son had died 6 years prior. I'm not sure how that was a reason, and I'm definitely sure I didn’t understand it all. Anyways, Elder Taveras started telling her about the Plan of Salvation, really brief. And 30 seconds later, with tears in her eyes, she let us in. We ended up teaching her whole family. It was awesome!

Our second investigator was Hmo. Francisco. We were walking down the street, when we heard someone yell, "Brothers!" He and his girlfriend had just been talking about his previous work in the US in Vegas. He worked for a company that happened to employ many LDS members. He called us over to his truck, and we set up an appointment to meet him Sunday night. This is where the previous story ties in. We get to his house, and he meets us at his door before we even knock. Since he was from Vegas, he knew a lot of English, but wasn't quite fluent. We started talking. He was practicing his English with me, and my Spanish with him. And the first sentence I said, I messed up, but he quickly corrected me. He told me not to worry, because that was how he learned English, by being corrected. And from the moment, I totally forgot my worry about not being able to speak. No, I didn’t understand it all, but we had one of the best lessons we've ever taught with him. And I actually said stuff!! It wasn't until that night that I realized that my companions promise was true. I was able to have one of the greatest lessons ever, in Spanish, and I know it was because the Lord knew what he was doing. It just so happened to be with a man that knew English, but I know that it was much more than just coincidence. Faith - what an amazing principle of work and reward. The Lord truly blesses faith.

Ok, in reality, this week has been great. I just made it hard for myself. I've had a lot of great experiences here. Not only is the church true here, but so is baseball. While my companion was on the phone, I was able to watch a few runs. Also, I had the most amazing churros of my life. Maybe I was just hungry, but they were fantastic. 

I want to finish with Scripture of the week. Last week, I ponderized Matthew 6:21. It made me readjust somethings in my mind this week. This week, I will be ponderizing Alma 32:41, all about faith.

Well, everybody, thank you all so much for your support. I love you all, and am so thankful for this opportunity to be out here. I love you all, and I'll talk to you guys next week!!

Love,

Elder Quinn

Additional comments:

 I think the problem is that I actually have a pretty good comprehension of the language, and He's wanting to push me. But I don’t want to. I want it to take 3 months to learn. But I need to have more faith and trust in the Lord, as well as being practical and patient with myself.

I almost forgot, but I had the wonderful opportunity to wash my clothes by hand today. Last week we took our stuff to a laundry mat, but they came back just like we had given it to them, just with a slightly less worse smell. I’m not sure if I'm doing it right. haha!!