After Christmas

Email sent 28 Dec 2009

Christmas caroling and delivering green oranges

It was so cool to be able to talk to you guys on Christmas, it really did make my day! im already looking forward to Mothers day when we get to talk again!  Christmas sounded fun for you guys i do miss being there alot! seeing those pictures though helped me out and now im not so far away from home!  This christmas i have kinda gotten homesick but i guess that is to be expected at this time of year that has so many memories..but i really am greatful to be out here and serving and i wouldn't have it any other way... for the next 19 months of course, then i would only want to be home! lol

This week we didn't get much done proselyting wise. Because we were getting ready for christmas and everything there was so much excitement in the air! lol so i just have a couple things to talk about this week! When i got the package i thought it was so funny that you guys included those sweatbands that i have had in my room for years! i really did laugh, so today we are playing football against the cape coast zone and indeed i am going to wear one of the sweatbands! ha it will be funny!

This is a question for mom and dad. have you ever heard of the band Boney M? This is an old band in like the seventies, but Ghanaians freaking love this band and play it all the time everywhere and i have actually grown pretty fond of them as well so if you havent' heard of them you should probably check them out from the library of something! cuz they are legit! lol

ok and so now talking about the camera that i have gone back and forth on forever.. Elder Hancey's parents just sent him a brand new camera through the mail, just using those some packages that you guys use. and it got here safe and everything!!! His camera is sweet and i would really like it if you could buy one and send it sometime! you can even use my money for it! the camera i am wanting is the same as Hancey's, it is a Kodak M340 and i think it would be under 200 dollars. What Hancey's parents did is they sent it with some hot wheels and some other things, so i think that would be sweet if i could get a new camera so i would be able to carry it around all of the time :)

Sorry this email is really crappy and doesn't have much to do with anything important.

I love you,

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph - we asked him why he goes by his first name

Happy christmas and have a wonderful new year. my father choose to be called Joseph the reason i do not know but the name always motivate me to be good.


For Elder petersen, he is doing great in football for the past nine weeks we have together he has improve in football and if he continue he can play in a proffessional team. for runing i do not do it for i am not all that good my favourite sport are football,volleyball and table tennis. i also love to play basketball but not all that good.

I teach computer operation in a computer firm and some of the program i teach are microsoft office and graphice like coral draw.

Yes i call them and it was love to hear my family for the past seven month and they are doing fine

Afenhyia paa!!!

Email sent 21 Dec 2009

That means happy christmas in Fante! and it is not pronounced at all how it is spelled, there are some weird ways the ghanains use words and it makes them sound alot different then it actually looks.

ok so this week i have slowly been getting sick... no fun. i think that my body knows that it should be getting colder so i am actually getting a cold right now and a sore throat. :( its kinda annoying having a runny nose all of the time and having to deal with it throughout the day but hopefully it goes away soon.

The week went by really slowly because we have been anticipating so many things to come. This last Wednesday we had a multi zone conference with 2/3 of our mission and President Sabey talked to us about christmas. It was really cool and very spiritual. And then after they had food catered to the chapel we were at and we basically got to eat as much food as we wanted. It was all very good, and we all felt kinda sick after eating so much, but it was definitely worth it!

This week our ward was starting a ward choir so i agreed to play the piano for them... the only problem is my ward has the biggest collection of the worst singers in the world! ha you might think that that is an exaggeration, but it is not... at all. They are not good at all, they sing some songs way to fast and others way to slow and all of them they sing totally off pitch. So that is kind of interesting, me and elder Joseph kind of have to knock them into line so that they don't sound totally terrible! lol

I'm officially 1/6th done with my mission today! thats so weird, i know that there is still alot to go but it does seem like the time is going by pretty fast and im sure it will be over before i know it. We had a cool lesson this week. We were teaching a kid named Tony, he is about 18 years old and we have been teaching him for a little while. We were teaching him Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and the spirit was really strong, during the lesson he asked us the question So is it true that Jesus Christ's church is really back on this earth? i don't know why but i got kinda emotional as i was telling him about everything, and you know me I DON'T CRY, but i was on the verge of tears when i was talking to him. luckily i kept my composure and the Spirit was strong that was a sweet lesson!

So as for the phone call, on Christmas day what we are going to do is our district is going to go carolling in the morning and hand out oranges to different people that should be really fun! then after that we will head back to our apartment. This Christmas President Sabey gave us 5 extra cedis each in our subsistence and told us that we were to make a meal for a family on Christmas. so Me, Elder Joseph, Jackson, and Hill are all working together to make this meal for this family and that will be really cool! so by the time we are done making the meal and everything it will be about 5' o clock. So i will be calling you guys anywhere from 5-6 Ghana time, which i think will be 10-11 AM Utah time. I hope that that is ok! that is the best time that i think we would be able to do it. Im not sure if our calling card works to other countries, but if it does i can maybe call you and then you will be able to call me back using the calling card, but if not that is fine i will buy enough units so that we can talk anyways! We can figure that out when i talk to you :) im really excited to finally talk to you guys again! So i hope that the time is good for you guys, sorry i was so late on getting this information to ya.

Thats so weird to hear about all of these different people getting married and stuff. it feels like my normal life should just be on pause right now, but that is definitely not the case! lol

Brandy,

You had a black baby! (Note:  Brandy has an Adult Roles class where they are assigned to bring home a mechanical baby for a weekend and take care of it.  It is programmed to act like a real baby - cry, eat, fuss, etc.)  lol that is really funny. did the baby cry every time it sees a white person, because that is what most of the black babies do over here! im glad your having a fun time in ceramics, because ceramics is sweet, my goal is to find a potters wheel in Ghana and make something that would be so cool.

Ok so now for the business. Alexis got an autograph of Galen Rupp? freak what is she doing just switching from Luke to Galen... haha but i am actually way jealous that she got an autograph from him so if its possible maybe you could drop a hint that i want one too :) lol

So thats all i have for now, but i will be talking to you guys on FRIDAY!!! im excited for that, hopefully we don't run out of things to say :)

Love,

Quinton

One again we were up to send emails back and forth - here are the follow ups.

We asked him for more details on the phone call for Christmas:

ok for us we are going to have 2 cell phones in our apartment on christmas so the we don't have to worry about the other companionship.. I have to buy a sim card, and some units to call you guys.. everything is prepaid though, and its all pretty cheap so i don't think it will be a problem. You guys don't have to buy a card or anything just sit and wait for the call. i can talk for around 40 minutes so we'll see how long we go!

We asked him about sending pictures:
 
ill start sending a picture every week it actually doesn't take to long! i just always forget so i will start next week! because the time is almost out and we are going to play football today!
 
I love you and ill talk to you all on Friday :)

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas - not really

Email sent 14 Dec 2009

So it is getting closer and closer to Christmas time! and really nothing is changing about Ghana. Its kind of weird to know that back home it is snowing and doing all of these crazy things that have to do with winter, but over here they don't really even acknowledge that christmas is coming. The only sign we have that it is drawing near is now they have changed the plastic coke bottles they sell and they now have a black santa on them which i thought was pretty funny. I am going to buy one just so i can have the wrapper with the black Santa on it!

So last week was way sweet! i told you that we were playing Cape Coast in football and that we won, but after we went to buy our things the best thing happened! We were at the local supermarket and we were looking around, and low and behold what did i see? Mountain Dew! ha apparently they have mountain dew here so obviously you know me! i bought 7 of them, one for every day of the week. i had to take advantage of the oppurtunity because i don't know if they will have it again this week, but we will see later!

This week we had the craziest thunder and lightning storm that i have ever seen or heard! As we were starting to go to bed we could tell it might rain but didn't really think anything about it, but at about 2 in the morning we here it start pouring rain and lightninging a ton! The lightning was so much that it would light up our whole room very clearly every single time. Then came the loudest thunder that i have ever heard. It really felt like an earthquake because the thunder was so loud it made our whole house shake, so this continued for about an hour and we were just up watching and listening to it because noone could sleep because it was too loud. But it was fun so i didn't care.

We had one baptism this week! The kids name is Cyprian that we baptized and he is a way solid kid. i was very happy that we were able to baptize him because we were even teaching him when Elder Hurst was here and he has been coming to church every sunday now and has a way solid testimony. The baptismal service was way spiritual which is different from most baptisms here, the talks were very good and you could just feel the spirit. I was the one performing the baptism this time and we had a little problem. The water in the font had only filled about to our knees so the water was really low, so when i baptized him i pretty much had to lay him down on the bottom of the font! lol but it worked out and i got him fully submerged the first time, i was pretty proud of myself!

My favorite scripture hero.. hmmm there are so many cool ones its hard for me to choose just one. But as for just a strictly cool guy it would have to be Ammon, or Teancum because both were crazy good warriors and also had a very strong testimony. But also i would say Moroni because of what he had to go through being the last righteous person and pretty much living out his days by himself, i really respect him for that!

We do indeed have a freezer, it is not totally uncivilized out here like you might think mom. LOL we actually have two normal fridges in our apartment and each of them have freezers.

It sounds like its getting really cold at home! i am ashamed to say that i do actually get cold some nights, its probably like 70 degrees or something like that but sometimes i feel like it gets cold, i couldn't imagine going home to 0 degree weather and snow! for now i am content living here in the heat. but i am glad that it is snowing so that dad can get lots of plowing to do. Ebay seems to be working out good for you! maybe you can start a business and start making tons of money on it! that would be really cool. i am amazed also at how well i have actually been able to play the piano here, because back home i had problems sight reading alot of the hymns, but now im really now having trouble at all and have been able to play most of them pretty well, even if i have never heard the hymn before. But that doesn't stop my ward from singing terribly... ha the Kojokrom ward i think is a little tone deaf but thats ok they try.

Brandy,

I miss Ceramics, next time you are sending pictures to me make sure to send some pictures with you and your ceramics stuff in there because i wanna see how your doing and see if you are good or if your just lying to me. lol jk i believe you i just wanna see your stuff! Also im pretty sure that i answered that Question in the letter that i wrote home to you guys, so if you get that letter, and if it is not answered in that then ill answer it, so youll just have to wait :) oh and tell Karen that i haven't gotten her letter yet so its not my fault that i haven't written her back yet!

Also be careful driving, you are already the first of the kids to get in an accident so make sure you don't repeat that ok :) just be a good driver and make good decisions and think if Quinton was driving right now would he do this thing, and if the answer is yes you can do it! but if its no, then you should definitely steer away from that thing! lol

Thanks for everything. i sent Elder Joseph the message that you sent me, so he will be writing you back probably next week!

I love you,
Quinton

Email received 14 Dec 2009 from Quinton's companion Elder Joseph Oghenemine - Quinton calls him Elder Joseph

Hellow

I am privillede to be with your son on same mission and even be his companion
my family is made up of my mother and a step-father who are both memeber of the church and an elderly step-brother who is currently on the Ghana Accre mission.

I was born and brought up in Nigeria with my father and mother but my father die when i was just 9 year.

i just the church throught my step father who bring all my family to the church in 2002 i was baptise in 24 november 2002.

The climate with Ghana is almost the same.

The system of schooling in Nigeria is 3-6-6 from nusery to high school.

i live in a city called Warri.

my father is a carpenter but i tach in a computer firm before i came on mission.

Mission is only challeging when you do not work but as you put your self in it the challeges become lessons and learning the language of the Ghanans

Have a wonderful proselyting day and my mission prisedent advise

A Week of Christmas

Email sent 7 Dec 2009

so i had this whole letter written out to you guys this morning and then the cafes internet went down and i have been very angry because then my computer froze and i lost the whole letter that i wrote to you guys :(

but now i will write a slightly smaller version!

I got your guys first package last week and i was way happy! the package was sweet and i have eaten alot of the things in it already lol. I was also way excited to get the Conference talk ensign because we don't have that here yet! so ive been reading a talk or two every day now! The package was way sweet because it was pretty stuffed! alot of other peoples parents don't pack them as much as you guys did and that made it really cool! I loved the mashed potatoes and gravy, i still have one of them left! Im very excited for the packages to come as well! so as for the watch, i don't think i will be needing a new watch. i guess you can just send me the watch bands, but im not sure if i know how to get them on. But i can try and see! and as for the camera i decided that we should scratch that idea because its too expensive and too big of a risk if it is lost or broken or something! so no need for a new camera ill just make do with what i have for now.

it is seriously getting hotter every day. it is kind of coming into the "summer" months in ghana and the heat and humidity is getting bad. but im used to it and as long as i wear my sunscreen i don't get burnt.

Me and Elder Joseph are still companion which is sweet because i really really like the guy. he is a very cool companion and a very good missionary. and Elder Hill and Elder jackson are still companions so nothing changed in our apartment. but the zone that we were in last transfer split and so now we are in a new zone so there are alot of things that are different but our day to day things changed very little!

sorry this is so short!

brandy, you did way good at footlocker im proud! and im glad you actually got to run the real course this year because it is a very fun and hard course! 21:34 is legit, and i am pretty sure that is what i ran my freshman year...the exact same time! or close to it, and the next year i ran 18:46 so i think that you should be able to do that next year as well :) good luck with running in the snow!

So mom yes i do like it when you send copies of other emails in the emails because it helps me know what my friends are doing which is cool! Don't forget that the Christmas season is a time for giving and not for getting. as i look back on how i was back home i kind of was a bad son. I didn't participate much with the family and really didn't help out any around the house or anything, so when i get home i vow to change that because i really do see that i missed out on alot of cool stuff because i was preoccupied "being a teenager" or something like that.

I love you all so much,

Quinton

PS im not sure what is gonna happen with the phone call yet so when i find out ill keep you posted