Quinton's sister, Melinda, is on a mission too!!!

Texas McAllen Spanish speaking - See her blog at www.melindasmission.blogspot.com

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Unexpected Return

Quinton returned home on Saturday, September 25 after three weeks of illness where he was unable to do missionary work.  He had been out thirteen months.  President and Sister Sabey and the mission doctor worked with him to try and get him better, but nothing seemed to help.  The decision was made for him to return home to have tests and healthcare that is not available in Ghana.  Since coming home, Quinton has gotten better.  Medical tests were done and everything appears normal.  When he came home, he was given an honorable medical release.  He is working full-time at Kneaders Bakery and Cafe and is planning on returning to school in January at Southern Utah University (SUU) in Cedar City, UT.

Quinton is having his homecoming this Sunday (Nov. 28) at 1 pm at the River Ridge 4th Ward (9700 S 1285 W, South Jordan, UT).  We would love to meet you if you come.

We thank everyone for their support and prayers through this time.  Quinton really enjoyed his mission and made many good friends with the missionaries as well as the wonderful people of Ghana.

Monday, September 13, 2010

This has probably been the most miserable week of my life

Email sent Monday 13 September 2010

(Please say a few extra prayers for Quinton!!!)

ya...not kidding. sorry this email is probably gonna suck, but my mind isnt really moving to fast right now. so i have been having these headaches now for about three months, and they have only seemed to get worse and worse. Sister Sabey has had me taking 800mg of ibuprofen 3 times a day for a little while and it doesnt do anything to the headaches. So then comes into play this week. this week the headaches have magnified in intensity by like 700 times. not joking. from tuesday going i have just been in bed. ive basically just had a migraine for like 6 days now. and i have been talking to sister sabey tons and she has been talking to the mission doctor tons trying to figure out what is wrong. they have basically been guessing at different drugs that might help, but nothing is helping. we have come to the conclusion that it is some sort of virus that people sometimes get, its really rare, and there is no way to cure it. basically ive been in intense pain for the last week just hating my life in my bed. President Sabey called me this morning and talked to me, he said that there is one last thing that we can try to see if helps, which is a drug called Prednisone, its actually a steroid, but they have given it to people that get these and it helps sometimes. so basically the jist of it is i am gonna try this prednisone stuff for the next week or so and see if it gets any better. i really dont know if it will. President told me that after that it just comes down to if i can stay or not, and honestly if this doesnt get better i dont want to stay. President has had to send a few missionaries home because of this, and he said that there is really no way to tell if or when it will get better. Im really struggling here. so basically if it doesnt get better in like a week or so i could be packing my bags to come home. i actually think that might help with the headaches but i dont know. President said that this Prednisone really is like a last ditch effort to see if it helps... so hopefully it does. sorry this email probably stinks but my head is throbbing right now, if you get this soon email me back and give me some advice or something

i love you

Quinton

i havent thrown up yet, but i have wanted to a couple times and started dry heaving. we havent been to a chiropractor and honestly there probably isnt any good ones in Ghana. my companion has just been suffering with me in the apartment. he has done alot of cleaning while ive been laying down

this next week will basically tell if i stay here or if i go home, cuz if it is anywhere near this bad i cant be an effective missionary when i can barely go outside.

keep me in your prayers

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

hello how is every thing i hope all is well and the family

this week has been a lovely one as we were planning to teach some people we are planning to baptize and the number is the most i have got in my mission if all of them are baptize they will 15 of them which is really sweet

also we will be having a conferece with the new area presidency and i hope it will be a wonderful one

have a wonderful week

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

hi

Email sent Monday 6 September 2010

Hello my name is Quinton Petersen, i am your song... haha ya. This week was really pretty crazy, because we were having those leadership training sessions in cape coast on tuesday wednesday and friday. so those days i left the apartment at 630 with the zone leaders and we went to the trotro station and just hopped into a trotro to go to cape coast. so i took 6 hour long trotro rides this week, i really dont want to be in a trotro again for a while now haha. but the meetings were good. president sabey and the assistants talked about some focuses that the mission will be having and some of the changes that the guys up top have made. it really is nothing different, but it just focuses our efforts on some parts of preach my gospel that will help us to be more effective, so all in all it was good. plus i got to hang out with a couple friends i hadnt seen in along time. Elder Bahme, and Jackson. so we had fun there. but seriously going there and back all the time totally wore me out it was really crazy. so my companion was on splits with the other 2 missionaries in my apartment while i was gone. everything went well

wednesday Julius and a guy named francis were baptised it was cool. we had maybe like 20 people at the baptism and that was a pretty good turnout.

My scriptures are kinda starting to fall apart, so i decided to buy a small quad BoM. it cost 67 cedis, so ya its kinda expensive but i needed a new one. the binding of my old one is kinda falling apart. i ordered it so it should be here within like two months or so.

i got in a bike crash this week. i kinda ran into a ditch and just ejected off the bike. my companion said i made it look really smooth and like a meant to do it. haha i didnt get hurt.

Yesterday was a really sweet day on mission. i was on splits with Elder Evans, and we went to my church where julius and francis were confirmed, and then we went to elder Evans church. then after that the elders at Kojokrom were having a baptism, and the sisters had been teaching that investigator and it finished the goal for them so we went. it was way sweet to go back to kojokrom. i seriously love that area. everyone in the church remembered me and all the little kids were screaming my name. it was way cool. then the baptism went well. after it me and my comp went and saw a few other people i knew around there. it was really cool. i went and saw the Sam Family, the family i baptised right before i left, and when they saw me the wife jumped up and just yelled my name and ran at me and gave me a hug, haha. it was really cool to see them again, so ya kojokrom is a sweet place

i havent gotten your letters yet

(We asked Quinton about the mission's focus to be more obedient to the mission rules and this is his response.) so as far as that stuff about the ipod and stuff, ive already given it to Pres Sabey, so thats not a problem. i only have 3 girlfriends out here, so i have to dump them now and that made me kinda mad :) haha i hope you know im joking about that. i dont have any music anymore cuz everything i had was on my i pod. but elder tracy has a bunch of motab cd's so thats ok i dont need anything like that

my headaches have gotten worse lately. im taking about as much ibuprofen as the give a small elephant when his tusks start to grow in. haha ya, me and sister sabey are trying to figure out whats wrong but were not sure. maybe it will come in time...well i havent had mtn dew in like 2-3 weeks now so thats definitely not it. sister sabey said it might be a virus thing, but we dont know :(

sister sabey has been calling the mission doctor about these things, so its not like im doing something that is really gonna hurt me because the doctor is the one telling me to do this. if it is a virus there is basically nothing that we can do but, she said that it might just go away. i dont know. they have a chiropractor in my area, maybe ill talk to her about that sometime soon. i might start running one time a week with our apartment so maybe that will help, all this stuff i really dont know, im just hoping it will get better.

oh PS we played football against the Abura Zone today, and guess what we won 6-3. ya! ha i scored a goal as well so it was cool. it seems like physical activity makes the thing worse though, cuz right now it is a splitting headache

i drink tons of water, so i dont know. ive been talking to sister sabey alot and she calls me alot so ill bring these things up next time

love ya

Quinton

Email received from Elder Joseph (former companion)
 
We had an all African service project day where all the member of the church in west Africa carry out service for other so for this one we join the branch we are serving with to do the service and it was a nice experience for us as missionaries but as we proselty we sometime do unplanned service with both member and investigator
 
the branch do most of the teaching in my current branch we just go there to contribute to their lesson also we don`t hold any responsibility
 
our Area is small so we don`t use bike we walk
 
how is the family i hope all is well have a wonderful week and greet your family for me
 
thanks

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A transfer full of meetings...

Email sent Monday 30 August 2010

This transfer has been kinda weird, because as melinda talked about in her emails we have been having alot of training sessions about the whole new lessons and stuff, but our mission president is doing it differently then hers i think. he has had a couple training sessions with all of the missionaries, but this next week on tuesday wednesday and friday the district leaders, zone leaders, and prospective trainers will be going to cape coast for some meetings and stuff. ya so i have to go to those, which means that we wont be getting a whole lot of proselyting done in this next week. my companion will be staying with the two other elders in the apartment and i will go to cape coast with the zone leaders in my zone. its kinda a hastle, but it must be important if were doing that stuff so im excited. and ill get to see alot of people there too so that will be fun.

You are correct this week we played a football match against the Assin Fosu zone. and elder joseph came. its the first time ive seen him in seven months so it was really good to see him. We won the game 6-2! so we dominated pretty well. it was a fun game and i had 2 sweet assists off of corner kicks. it was really fun. i had missed playing on this full pitch down here, because it really is a nice field. especially compared to what we played on at kumasi.

We are teaching a guy right now that was once paralyzed. he is way awesome, and hes not paralyzed anymore, but he still walks funny cuz he basically has no muscles in his legs from being paralyzed for so long. he is super cool, and we will actually be baptizing him and one other guy on wednesday. This paralyzed guys name is julius. he's a barber and lives in the air force barracks for some reason. He is also a draft master. now your probably thinking what is draft, well its a game like checkers, that is way sweet we play in our apartment at the end of the day sometimes. but seriously julius wins like major tournaments for it, so he is way legit and a way cool investigator.

i know that kalen is in the phillipines, and i heard mckell was coming here. you should get her to bring me something! that would be really cool to see her. shes not a way good friend of mine, but it would be cool to see someone from home.

I will be sending melinda seperate emails, but she doesnt have tons of time so she just writes me small emails too. but still forward me her emails, cuz i wanna read them. i havent been able to take any pictures lately because the camera is broken. its still in kumasi, and elder lunt is getting someone to fix it up there then he will send it down with the assistants. my other camera that i brought on mission i actually sold when i got this new one. i sold it to a missionary who was going home that was from ghana that really wanted one.

ya so everything is cool here. im just trying to gear up for this next year. i kinda feel like i went through a mid mission crisis and i was really having a hard time thinking i was only half way done and that i had to do another year all over again. but thats basically over now. i know why im here and for what purpose and thats what matter. i like my companion he is a really good example to me and we get along well.

i really wanna know what is going on in the running world. you should send me any results of the races that bingham and brandy are in... both boys and girls just because i wanna see how they are doing. thank you :)

love you

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)
 
Thans also for your mail it has really make my pday going i also know that the gospel is true and my prayer is that the people i baptize should continue in the gospel
 
it was good before now i and elder Petersen has been playing on same team but now i am in Assin foso and he is in takoradi but they win us today
 
we still have good time together

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Going downhill feels so good!

Email sent Monday 23 August 2010

yup, so it is deinitely official, i have been out here in this ocuntry for more than 365 days. its actually kinda a weird feeling, because when i came out i thought that the missionaries that were at a year were so old and had everything together, but i dont really feel like that at all haha. i still feel new here, its kinda weird. but i am definitely happy that it has come. to celebrate our one year we went to this resteraunt called North Sea. everything is way expensive there, and i didnt really wanna spend money so i only bought some 3 cedi egg roll things. they werent even that good. but it was fun talking and just hanging out with everyone. Elder Tracy in my apartment, and he was in the mtc with me, and mackay is in the sekondi zone so he came with us too. so ya that was fun.

This week was a lot different of a week because we had so many different things going on that we really didnt even get that much time to do actual proselyting. Tuesday we had District meeting, Wednesday a baptism, thursday zone conference, friday was normal, and saturday we had a huge service project, and then played football with our ward and celebrated the 1 year.

so ya it was intense. i also had to do my first ever baptismal interview on tuesday night, it was actually alot easier and not as scary as i was making the thing out to be in my mind, so i was really thankful for that. it was basically just the same as a lesson, but i was the only guy in the lesson. ha but i have to do another one on wednesday so i will be getting alot of practice i think.

I am NOT living in the same apartment. im living in the actual town of takoradi, and not kojokrom. this place is actually really nice for Ghana. there are tons of nice houses in our area and stuff, its basically a 180 from kojokrom. i keep seeing people i know from kojokrom though and its sweet. one day me and my comp are just gonna go visit them!

My district is pretty sweet, it is actually our entire zone, and it has 12 people in it. Me, my comp, Tracy, Elder Kundiona, Elder Evans, NAthaniel, Stubbufield, Tweh, Sister Garba, Nagasau, Izidor, and Mkwezalamba. they are all cool people, and im liking it down here. today for P day we played card games and stuff like that! we played a big game of spoons with our district and it came down to me and sister Nagasau from Fiji, and of course i won...why you ask? because im awesome :) haha but seriously i won and it was cool.

We had the all africa service project on Saturday, and that is were all of the church throughout africa take a day for service, and what we did is we cleaned up this huge strip of road right in front of our chapel. so we had tons of members and even investigators there helping it was really cool and it was actually really hard work.

so ya thats basically whats going on. we have another baptism in 1.5 weeks, with two way cool guys so that should be cool.

my headaches are still here, but they are diminishing a little bit. the infection is gone i think, so everything down there is cool. haha i didnt have to pay the hospital bill. i only payed the first 2 cedis and then the church insurance covers the rest. we also constituted a war on mosquitos in our apartment and dowsed the whole thing with permethryn. and after we did that they really havent been a problem! cool huh. i dont get mosquito bites any more, but im still sleeping in my net because right now it doesnt bug me :)

have a great week

love

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

Missionary work goes on

that is really a wonderful experience for her (Elder Joseph is talking about Quinton's sister, Melinda, because I told him she was on her own with two seventeen year old missionaries her second week in the field and she was contacting spanish speaking people) the same thing happen to me when i came the first time to Ghana i was just sleeping during sacrament meeting because i can`t hear (understand) anything that they speak and even teaching the lesson if not that my trainer was a Ghanaian who do all the teaching and i just bear testimony after but as time goes on she will come to understand the language and the people and then missionary work will be sweet

it has been a wonderful time in my new area and my days are drawing to an end and i am doing well next week we will be have a football match with Elder Petersen in Takoradi

have a wonderful week

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

One lap down...one to go

Email sent Monday 16 Aug 2010

haha i like to live my mission through an 800m race, so right now i have raced the first 400, well at least by Saturday i will have done that! im actually pretty stoked about it. everything from here on out is downhill! sweet!

Ya so i have plenty of things to talk to you about this week! because there was alot of things that happened. me being transfered was the most prominent thing that has happened. Basically on monday and tuesday i packed and didnt do a whole of a lot we just hung out with the other missionaries and stuff, and we actually went to town so i could stock up on mountain dew, because i didnt think they had it in Takoradi, little did i know that they do! haha so that was kinda a waste, but whatever. haha

On wednesday we headed to the STC staion, STC is a huge bus thing (a tour bus) like the ones that we take to footlocker, and we boarded that thing and left everyone. im gonna miss alot of the people up in Kumasi because i got to be really close to some of them. Elder Jackson, and Elder Russel rode the bus down with me, which was cool. all 3 of us started our mission in the kojokrom district, and then we all got transfered up to kumasi and then we all got transfered back down at the same time! all three of us were called to be district leaders, but we're all in seperate zones so i dont get to see them anymore. so after a long time on the STC bus, i finally made it to takoradi. My companion is really cool, he is from Enoch, UT which is right by cedar city so we have stuff in common there. im living with Elder Tracy, who went to the MTC with me. Hes a really good friend so we are gonna enjoy. and his compnion is elder Kuniando from Zimbabwe. the people in our apartment are cool. our apartment on the other hand isnt. there is a serious infestation of mosquitos in there like way bad. im sleeping in my mosquito net again because it is so bad, right now i would say i have a total of 50 mosquito bites on my feet, and thats even with sleeping in a net. apparently i taste really good. were getting some permethryn soon so we can take care of the mosquito problem.

My new area is huge, and we actually ride bikes everywhere. this area is one of the only biking areas in the mission. id say we ride like 6 to 8 miles in a day, so its pretty cool, its always nice for a change of pace, because im not gonna lie i was getting pretty tired in my other area. but now im here. my companion is super green, but its sweet. Im in the actual town of takoradi, so its not the same as kojokrom. kojokrom was like a villagey sort of thing about 30minutes from takoradi. but im in the center of town now, its really cool.

I have to play the piano in church again. its kinda scary because i havent played in 6 months now, so i messed up a few times, but it was ok. all in good time it will come back to me. My ward is cool, i guess its kinda too early to tell now, but it seems like this area will be a really good one, and i could see myself staying here for a while. the sweetest thing is that a couple days ago they were having like a youth conference thing for the whole stake at the stake center, and we went there, and i got there and there was just millions of people i knew from my old areas, little kids i had baptized and stuff, its crazy after six months how much bigger they have gotten. and then there was even tons of other people that were calling my name and saying hi to me that i didnt even remember, i must have made quite the impression over there :) haha

But now i am back in Fante town. Twi is so much easier than Fante, i could seriously understand almost everything people said up in kumasi, but here the speak fante, so im gonna need to get used to that again :( oh joy.

Now your ready for it...the sweetest thing about this new area! drum rollllllllllllllll, there is this little shop that sells hamburger like things and they are only 50 peswas! they are so good and there cheep, so basically im gonna be eating these hamburger things every day, because i love them. you probably dont understand my joy over them, but its sweet!

My headaches havent gone, but i am still taking the medicine sister sabey told me to take, so we will see what happens with that.

yup so that is basically the news for the week, i am now on my last 90 days of those contacts, so you should be getting that package ready to send me with 6 months worth in it please :) also if you could include a ton of gatorade powder inside it i would love that. i really miss gatorade.

That is all

love

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

that is really true i have seen it in my course of teaching the gospel and now i am with my mtc mate as companion and we are even Nigerian and the work has been a wonderful one in my new area and i know that as time goes on the lord will help us to finish the work

how is Melinda doing i hope she is doing well

send my greeting to your family and have a wonderful week

Monday, August 9, 2010

hey hey hey

Email sent Monday 9 Aug 2010

i have alot of stuff to tell you today! Transfers are today! i dont know if anything is happening yet because we still havent gotten the call, but im assuming that i will know sometime during when i am emailing you so i will keep you updated on that. I dont really wanna get transfered, but at the same time i kinda do. it is always good to get a change, it gives me more drive and also breaks up the monotony of things, so we will see about that.

Right now my apartment is a huge construction zone! they are redoing pretty much every room in it, and tiling the stuff, we are getting "carpet" in each of the bedrooms, which will really just be a big rug, but it will be nice. the place already looks alot nicer, they finished tiling our big front room, and now they are destroying our hall place and our kitchen haha. so maybe i will see the finished project, but maybe i wont. i don't really know whats gonna happen.

So the infection that i have been having is totally gone! there is no more pain anymore, and i am actually finished taking the antibiotics for it! what a happy day, now i can actually go outside and not have fear of getting terribly burnt. i did actually bring my umbrella with me a few places but never got it out to use it because it was pretty shady here last week.

The head thing hasnt gone away though, so in one of the many phone calls that i have had to sister sabey in the past couple weeks we started talking about my headaches, and she said that this has happened before to some elders, so what the doctor said to do is to take 800mg of ibuprofen 3 times a day, for two weeks and see if that helps. so i started that like two days ago. i am hoping that it works, because sometimes the headaches are ok, but sometimes they are like migraine headaches and it is just really annoying to have a headache all of the time.

The Elders in Accra were convicted of their charges, we got a text from president a couple of days ago, one was sentenced to 10 years and the other to 7 years, so that is definitely a big deal.

Right now we are teaching alot of people out in a small town named Kotwi. we have one family of members out there and they are giving us tons of referalls of friends and we have really been working hard on a few people. This sunday we will be baptising a maybe 40 year old man, 50 year old woman, and her 8 year old daughter. those are the only ones that are totally prepared right now, but hopefully in the next coming 3-4 weeks we should be able to baptize 3-5 other people out there too. This one lady we will be baptizing sunday is named Grace, she doesnt really speak english very well, but she can understand it really good, so we teach her in english and then if she is ever having questions or contributions she will tell the member that is helping us teach, or me. and then we will translate the question for elder lunt. haha. she is seriously really cool, and has been prepared really well by this family. last time we met with her we asked if she had any questions and she said no, and then, in twi, she basically went on to teach us lesson one and lesson two combined, i understood but elder lunt was kinda lost haha. but she is solid and she is definitely prepared to be baptised so im excited for that.

We are helping a man rebuild his house after his house burned down maybe about a year ago or so. so basically we have just been there to do alot of the physical manual labor. i havent been feeling that good lately to help alot, but we have hauled a ton of dirt, i used a pick axe for a while to take out a concrete wall, and stuff like that. it is fun but really tiring. ill send you pictures sometime about it.

that topic brings me to my next concern...my camera has stopped working. i dont know why, it is like it is jammed or something. the lense is all the way out, and it wont close, and when i try and turn it on it makes this noise like it is trying to move but is stuck noise and then stops. so i havent been able to take many pictures for a little while and its kinda making me annoyed. maybe im not meant to have a camera out here or something haha. i dont know what to do about it because i dont know how to fix it :(

This last week the Bantama ward that we are serving in split. it was getting to big to hold all of the people so they split it into two wards, two wards for 4 missionaries. so we had our first time for the two wards yesterday and that was alot of church! haha, but eventually we will make it into 1 ward for 1 set of missionaries and the other for the other companionship. that is just a work in progress though.

well i hope that i have answered all of your questions.

well i love yall, have a good week

Quinton

Next are other responses to emails as we were on together:

***yaaaaa so guess what! oh today we actually played football, and then we played volleyball afterwards.
 
so you know how i said we were having transfers...well president sabey just called me and guess what.. im going! haha im going back to Takoradi! to be in the Takoradi apartment! my new companions name is elder Gibson ive never met him before but he's american, and i will be the district leader down there. im actually kinda pumped to go down there! Takoradi is sweet, so i should enjoy it i think :)
 
***I will try the stuff with the camera. and i dont really know if the infection will come back. so ya.
 
its not the same area as before, this time i will be in Takoradi Takoradi, like the main town part of it, right by the stake center with the full grass football pitch :) haha im excited for that! and to see people i havent seen in along time. im not sure who else is in that apartment...but it should be cool
 
***There is a ton of transfers going on right now, its actually kinda crazy haha. the camera could have gotten dust in it, but i havent ever dropped it or anything so i dont know whats up with it.
 
Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)
 
It has really been a nice time i had in kojokrom and also my new area is graduadully grow fine and now i am begining to enjoy the place but unfortunately i will be leaving the area this transfer to another area called assin foso so i will be leaving
 
but i have really learnt a lot from this area and am sad to leave so soon
 
i am doing powerful well
 
have a wonderful week

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Well i'm still here

Email sent Monday 2 Aug 2010

haha ya so the lat few days have been interesting as you guys could probably assume. The infection isnt a common thing, sister sabey said that having pain sometimes is common. but for the pain to actually last like mine was is not a normal thing and not good. The doctor said that if i didn't take care of it well it could turn into something called an Absess or something like that, and that would require surgery. so that would not really be a good thing if that happened. basically i will just give you the low down of the stuff that happened this week. haha but first of all i would like to say that regardless of all this i thought that my email last week was pretty good, despite the severity of what it was i was still able to add a little bit of humor into it. :)

So last monday i played football, come to find out that wasnt really the best idea, in Sister Sabeys words it was stupid. haha but ya i was feeling fine so i played.

Then tuesday came and something weird happened, the pain in the right side had really decreased, but now there was pain on the left. I was worried because the pain was not getting worse in the left one. but i called up sister sabey again and had another nice conversation, and she said it might be normal just getting the infection out, so it might be worse before it gets better. I said great that is exactly what i want. but you just gotta roll with the punches. so she told me that i should try and rest and keep my legs elevated, therefore that is what i did

Wednesday rolls around, and i was on splits with Elder Izekor, one of the zone leaders in our apartment. about 2 hours into the day i told him we just needed to head home because i was tired and stioo had pain. so i basically just came home and slept. then called sister sabey again and she told me that the doctor said that i need to just lay down for 48 hours...and not do anything. i don't know about you but laying down for 48 hours doesnt seem like that fun of a thing when you have no TV, Halo or anything of that sort. but ya so i had my next few days planned out for me, hoping that this would make it better.

Thursday, i layed down... yup thats basically it

Friday, what did i do... i layed down. so basically for two days straight thats what i did is just lay down. it was pretty miserable. and even me the king of naps couldnt take it. you know i love taking naps, but i couldnt handle it for 48 hours. haha but slowly but surely it kept getting better and better and didnt hurt as much as it used to.

And saturday we rested in the morning and proselyted in the evening.

Right now it is feeling pretty much better, sis sabey told me just to keep taking my medicine and everything should be ok. so things are going ok over here on that front.

On another front, part of the medication i am taking is double doses of doxy, and you know that doxy makes your skin sensitive to the sun, now just imagine me, double sensitive to the sun... basically if i even think about the sun i get burnt right now. it seriuosly sucks im not gonna lie to you. im miserable right now, i walk outside and i can feel the sun just like cutting into my skin, so i think tommorow im gonna walk around with an umbrella. seriously im gonna do it, cuz im sick of it.

ya so i havent exactly been having the best couple weeks, im sick of being sick, and i just freaking want it to get better so i can feel like a normal person again, because i feel like im just a shell of a person right now, i never have energy anymore, i always have headaches and im just tired all the time. i don't know i guess im just tired haha sorry im kinda venting in this email but it needs to be done.

so ya thats really whats up with me, unfortunately we did not go golfing today, people decided 30 citis was too much to pay for golf, i still wanted to go, so sometime i will probably go with select few that want too cuz it would be cool to golf in Ghana. funny thing too as we were having our p day activity these little kids walked in with golf clubs haha. they also had a makeshift golfball, it was actually an orange peel crushed up and surrounded in tape, so obviously i took a few swings, i was using an eight iron. it kinda just felt good to swing a club again, but i had a couple good shots

yup, so im sorry this email isnt really that long or good, but next week when im not so sunburnt i will type more interesting stuff

love

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

This week has reaslly been a streeful one because i have few lesson onlike kojokrom that there there are many opportunity to teach here many of the people has know the church so teaching has been a little bit hard but with all the work has been a good one and i hope i will be a good one by the end of this week

Melinda experience was the same with mine when i was coming it was alsoi my first time to fly but it turn to be one of my sweetest one

i also hope that elder Petersen will be fine so that he can go back to work

have a wonderful week

Monday, July 26, 2010

Interesting week...

Email sent Monday 26 July 2010

So this may be a shock to you, but last night i was admitted into a Ghanian hospital for four hours. This is true and not a joke. haha and that actually intails why it has been such an interesting week. Ive been telling you guys that i have been having headaches for a long time, but that wasnt the reason i had to go to the hospital.

(The following is a summary in Mom's words of the details that Quinton shared with us.)

"ha so last monday after playing football i started having pains. i thought huh so maybe its just like a normal pain or something and that it will go away. i went to sleep that night and thought it would be better in the morning. well when i woke up it wasnt, but it wasnt like a terrible pain. Then all that day it just kept getting worse and worse till eventually i had to tell elder lunt we had to come home from proselyting because it hurt. so we came home and i called Sister Sabey, because that is what were supposed to do when we have illnesses. she said it was actually a common thing, and told me to start taking 800mg of ibuprofen 3 times a day, and then if it didnt get better we would have to figure something else out. So i started to take the ibuprofen but it wasnt working and it actually kept getting worse and worse.

Yesterday we had church and then afterwards we had interviews with President. at church i couldnt even stand up for very long because it would hurt so bad, so i had to either stay sitting down or laying down. When interviews rolled around i talked alot more to sister sabey about it and she emailed the mission doctor about it because it was seriously bad, and i was even getting a fever as well, so something was wrong. The doctor called back and said that they should take me to the emergency room because we didn't want something bad to happen. I thought, oh no, not Ghanaian hospitals, they will not do surgery on me in this country! haha So after interviews we scooted on over to the KATH hospital in Kumasi with president and sister sabey. it was like six o clock so i was actually worried about being able to get in and actually see someone, but President has done stuff like that before so after a little bit of coertion and some broken skulls we got into the emergency and saw someone, i lied about the broken skulls part, but if needs be we could have done that. Elder Lunt was a cage fighter back home... haha seriously he was though.

So they took my temperature and my vitals and stuff, i had a fever of like 101 degrees, my resting heart rate was 102 bpm, which is like 40-50 bpm over what it normally is. and my respiration rate was actually really high as well, plus i could barely stand up because it felt like someone was stabbing me. So long story short, after four hours in the hospital, which was actually alot nicer than i imagined. It was kinda like an american hospital, except for the fact that they had like half dead people just in beds everywhere, maybe thats how emergency rooms are in America i dont know i dont remember. so ya back to business, after having a physical examination...awkward... and a urine test and some other things they determined that i had the infection. they said that they would give me some antibiotics and that that should clear it right up!

So ya after 4 hours there, most of which were wasted waiting i was discharged and president sabey gave us a ride home, i took the antibiotics and went straight to bed cuz i was exhausted. So this morning i woke up, suprisingly i feel like a whole new person, i think this infection is what has been causing all of these problems, because i have been tired all the time lately and not alert at all, i feel better today, my head is also more clear today and not as much of a headache, i dont have the fever anymore, and im pretty sure my heart rate is back to normal ish, and the best part is it doesnt hurt as bad. i couldnt stand up yesterday, and today i just played 90 minutes of football. crazy how fast the medication worked really. so im very happy. i hope that you have enjoyed this story, i felt i needed to inform you of everything. and yes melinda it was all necessary to tell, so dont get mad :) haha"

back to a normal letter now. we are doing some sweet service projects right now, we are helping two different people actually build houses! pretty much from the ground up. its really sweet, i havent been feeling to good lately and havent been to gun ho about it, but now that im feeling better im pretty stoked. This email has taken along time to write actually so i wont tell you a ton about it right now, but next week ill give you the deets on the project and also on some of our sweet investigators that we have right now! deal, ok deal!

Im slightly angry that Contador won the Tour de France again, i would have rather had Andi Schlek because i don't much like contador and i think he is a doper, i mean look at his teeth they are crazy crooked and that is a side effect of EPO and some other performance enhancing drugs. im also sad about lance, too bad. oh well he is still awesome and i dont care what anyone else says.

Mom you should have fun in Portland, i hear that that place is really sweet, but you should try and head up to Eugene Oregon (Quinton loves running and Eugene is where Steve Prefontaine went to college and set numerous running records), thats were the cool stuff is. and i will go there when i get home sometime.

Dad im glad you enjoyed water skiing, i cant wait to come home and go again, i miss being fully submergered in the water, cant wait, well only a year!

Brandy your awesome and im way proud of how you did at the Des news 10k, you almost beat all american girls! so sick, you speedy little devil!

Melinda, have fun in the heat, im enjoying it here :)

love you all

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

how are you doing and the family i hope all is well for me this week has been a wonderful one and i hope the same for you and your family

Last week we were able to accomplish our part of the mission goal and that was a wonderful experience and my prayer is that our heavenly father should help the other to fulfill their part

have a wonderful week and greet the family for me

Monday, July 19, 2010

I dont even have very much to say

Email sent Monday 19 July 2010

haha so you asked a ton of questions this email. i will be sure and try to answer all of them but seriously there are a ton so sorry if i dont.

We have been playing alot of football(soccer) lately for Pday activities, last week we played on a full pitch, but the pitch was actually dirt. ha so ya it was the two Kumasi zones against each other, and this time we won! i think the score was 4-2 or something like that. it was really fun, and i even scored a goal so im kinda a big deal, but im sure you already know that! today we just played football on the little grass they have at the church, that was fun but kinda stunk because i have been having the headaches again. This time they are worse so im not really sure what is going wrong with me. There was a mission doctor here today i asked him why i would be having it and he really didnt know, but he told me a couple things i could do to maybe help them. i dont think they will, but ill try it. cuz even right now it is hard to concentrate on writing you this thing because my head is throbbing. but im in Africa so ill get over it. This next week we are playing a full pitch match again zone vs zone and my zone will win, but the really kicker that im excited for is two weeks from today. We are going golfing! sick huh? well our district is going golfing so it will probably cost like 30 citis but apparently there is a legit course up here in Kumasi and were gonna do it. im totally excited for that, it will be kinda a late birthday present to myself.

i have about 4 months left of contacts, so what i was thinking is you could just send me six months worth of contacts out, and then i could just wear my glasses sometimes too. so i think that is the best course of action to be taken here.

the cookies are very good! (Note: For Quinton's birthday, we sent two packages, both with cookies in the lays stax containers. The first package I sent June 15 with peanut butter cookies, the second package on June 22 with oatmeal raisin cookies. He received both packages Thursday, July 8. He is about six hours from the mission home and it takes a package two weeks to get there if everything goes as it should. Package arrival to Kumasi then depends on someone from the mission home traveling to Kumasi. We were hoping that both packages would make it in time for his birthday, and they did! There was a zone conference on July 8, so the packages made it.)

there are like 135ish missionaries in our mission right now. We have heard about the stuff in Accra but not really anything other than about the court case. its really to bad that it happened. Whether it is true or not missionaries were doing what they werent supposed to, hopefully the truth comes out whatever it is.

its funny that you would mention haircuts at a time like this. ha so last week we had the full pitch match and me and Elder lunt decided that we would be intimidating when we got to the match, so we decided to shave mohawks into our hair lol so for that Pday i had a sweet mohawk, i will send the pics next week and you will see for yourself. but now my hair is cut down to a 1, thats 1/8th of an inch. my hair hasnt been this short since ..well along time ago so ya, i actually think i got it sunburnt today but thats life.

i love yall

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

truely we rreally have a wonderful mission president who teach us wonderful thing and i can bear testimony of that from our last conference all the thing we have recieve from him have been a lot of help to us as missionaries and the people we teach i really take him as a father since i have been on mission and i have seen faith oif many missionaries and they have strengthen my testimony.

have a wonderful week

Monday, July 12, 2010

Another year older and wiser ... probably not

Email sent Monday 12 July 2010

yep so it was my birthday on saturday, im finally out of the teens, i would like to tell you that i feel different but i feel exactly the same haha. in the morning for my birthday i made the executive decision that me and elder Lunt, who's first name is Casey btw, would go to the Kumasi stadium. because i wanted to run some! ha i was planing on running a mile but when i got there i realized that i am incredibly out of shape and running a mile would kill me. so i raced this huge black guy in two one hundreds. he won one and i won one! then i ran a 200 and had it times, this is how pathetic i am i ran a 29 and was dead. my running muscles just havent been used like that for a long time so i was tired, and i got a huge latic acid headache afterward too lol. but ya that was pretty much the extent of celebrating my birthday, after that we just went home and did normal proselyting things like missionaries do. one sweet thing was that we had zone conference on thursday, and not only did i get one package from you, i got two! i was super stoked about that, and all of the stuff inside of it was way sweet. the best thing was probably that little book about noah that you sent me. ha i read it to Elder White while he was jump roping, so i think he enjoyed it. oh and also the pictures were really good too. so thank you so much for all of that stuff and remembering my birthday, because i almost forgot myself :)

we have a blender in our apartment that is elder lunt and i have basically been making sweet shakes everyday twice a day, i use bananas, funny thing about bananas the only way that i can actually remember how to spell it is i have to sing that song by Gwen stefani that says eat bananas B a n a n a s! ha random. but ya the shakes are legit, im gonna be a shake making machine when i come home, i might even buy a magic bullet! maybe

zone conference was good, the talks were all good, President Sabeys son came, he actually just finished his mission in the same mission as Andrew Unker. i asked him if he knew him, he only really knew of him though, so whats cool. zone conference was just the two zones in Kumasi, and there is about like 40 missionaries up here. we are kind of in our own mission here because we get left out of tons of stuff. just the day before all of the southern zones had a combined zone conference which is cool for them, but not for us because we dont get to see them. i seriously don't know anyone in this mission except for the people in kumasi, ha if i ever get transfered down there i will be like a greeny to everyone because noone knows me lol

The scripture bags that i oredered a long time ago finally came too! so ill probably just send them to the mission home so i can have them when i leave because sending them to you in a package would be pretty expensive so ya, they look really cool though!

Im so glad that Boozer is finally gone! that guy is a deadbeat. all he is really after is money and he would never have the drive to do really well for the jazz, so good riddance! hopefully they pick up someone good to take his place! Thats cool that lebron went to the heat, i think that they could actually do really well! him and D-wade shuold seriously tear it up.

The boil on my nose is gone, i destroyed that thing ;)

And also the headaches have gone away, im not really sure what they were but its gone now so its cool, one of them probably was a migraine but its gone now so ya!

yup so i love yall and thanks for thinking of little old me out here in Ghana

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

i am really grateful for us to be able to accomplish this goal and this experience has strengthen my testimony some are really progressing and we hope that they will progress toward baptism

the area has been a sweet one also have a wonderful week

Monday, July 5, 2010

Im not angry anymore

Email sent Monday 5 July 2010

ha last week was kind of a bad week and i was sick of things so that is why i might have sounded angry or mad. ive gotten kinda homesick these past couple weeks, but im better now, and so everything is cool. im finally sending you pictures! The first one is my and elder lunt outside our chapel and the next one is a baptism that we had just yesterday with a husband and wife that we baptised!


Right now i think that i am getting a boil on my nose, which kinda stinks, but hopefully it will go away soon! thought you would want to know about that.

This week was good, i forgot to tell you that last sunday we had a Baptism and we baptised to girls, and this week we had another one and baptised a husband and wife. This last baptism was seriously heaven sent, because as you know the goal that we have had of baptising a husband and wife, well the goal ended just yesterday. Everyone in our entire mission was finished with the goal except for 2 missionaries. Elder Jackson and Valentine. now me and elder lunt have been working with this husband and wife trying to get them baptised, and they really wanted to there were only some marriage issues that were preventing them from doing that. Elder lunt was able to talk to president sabey and work all of these things out so that elder jackson and valentine were able to teach them and baptize them! so on the last day of the mission goal the goal was completed in our area! it was sweet, and they were so happy. this couple had been coming to church for a little more than a year now! so seriously the man was almost crying after i felt priveleged to be involved in their baptism. so we had to do a ton of scrambling to finish this goal, but we got it done. it was cool.

Happy fourth of july, last year at this time i had the swine flu...cool huh

my headache hasnt fully gone away and i don't know what it really is. it was actually really bad on saturday night, and i was sensitive to light and everything it was annoying. today it is alot better, but it is still kinda there..annoying. My ankle is pretty much better now too, i played football on it today for like four hours and everything was ok so it was cool.

last week on Pday we made cake! elder Rappleye who is a dutch oven master found out that we could use coals and just normal pots and made cake, so as a district we made cake it was really cool. i didn't eat any though cuz i wasnt hungry lol but well be doing it again soon so i will then! Elder Rappleye is training a new greeny and he is way green its funny. American missionaries when they first come out into the field are hilarious because their just so awkward, but hes a cool guy i like him.

i havent gotten the package yet but i think that i will be getting it on thursday because we are having zone conference on thursday so hopefully i get it then! im excited for that. i forgot to look and see how many contacts i have so i will do that this week, ill even write it in my planner so that i remember to do it!

and ya sorry i forgot about fathers day dad, people don't celebrate that here, i don't know why cuz dads are cool, so sorry. i have come to the decision that i wanna buy a car when i come home... but thats along ways away. but i still think i want to so you should look for good deals for me :) ha

is that a happier email for you this week? ha i hope so! oh and yes i do like getting austens emails, its nice to hear what he's up to.

i love ya family, enjoy my birthday this week without me! ill be the big 20, no longer a teenager! sweet

byebye

Quinton

Following are answers to emails that went back and forth this morning as Quinton was still on the computer.

***ya im still here, im not really sure what the whole headache thing is about, ill ask them about it. ive been taking some ibuprofen some, but it doesnt seem to help. its not a huge headache, its just kinda there always... frustrating.

thanks for saying happy birthday. i knew you didnt forget lol

***(I asked if they have to follow up on converts)ya we continue to see people. sometimes it depends on the person, but we try and keep seeing them for like 3-4 months after there baptism. there are activites that go on, i think in tuesday, and then they have institute 2 nights a week.

***the boil is gonna go down tonight! im gonna crush that thing, no matter how bad it hurts, its gonna be popped soon, then illl clean it or something lik that. not really alot happened with transfers last week. im still here, our apartment is still the same. im thinking next transfer alot of stuff will happen though. well see!

***there is some golf courses, but they are not legit at all haha there funny. there was one in takoradi and it had the wholes in the bunkers lol. its actually been really cold in kumasi lately with the rainy season! its sweet. im gonna die here when it gets hot again. i wish i could go golfing. thats one thing, we will be doing soon after i get home!

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

So Sad for Ghana

it was really sad to hear that the only Africa country in the world cup is 'out but with all all w think now is to baptize a football finding so we just pray that those we have contact should progress toward baptism that will be the only thing that will make the world cup a memorable one for me

Some of them have been serious and after their baptism they keep coming to church but many of them want us to followup with them to come to church and that make the work somehow stressful but that has been part of our duties. we have been following up with some of them and they are progressing

In Kojokrom we have been doing some service as District and as a zone and they are great ones but as we proselyte we still do some service to the people we teach and those are some of my wonderful experience as missionary

For this transfer i have been ask by our president that i should go to a new area in cape coast and right now i am on a city called Abura as a District leader and this is my first time to act in this calling and i think the apartment i am living right now is one of the worst one but there is nothing we can do but have to manage it

i think that kojokrom apartment is really nice and i really miss takoradi but the people here are nice becos most of them can speak English and some of the investigator are progressing and that make me like the area on like kojokrom

Thank also have a wonderful week

Monday, June 28, 2010

I hate Ghana!

Email sent Monday 28 June 2010

seriously this week totally blew! first thing first. as you said Ghana played America in the world cup. Ghanaians are incredibly prideful about football and there country and they are really not even that good, yet somehow they still seem to squeeze out wins all the time. so me and elder lunt have been talking trash to all of our investigators and members saying that America will kill Ghana.....ya well that kinda back fired as you well know. America gets beat by a little country the size of Oregon. i was just sitting outside of our apartment saturday night while the game was going waiting to hear people in Ghana freak out or get really mad. i really thought that America was gonna beat them. but then 5 seconds after the game started everyone in Ghana went crazy...i looked at elder lunt and said. crap, we're finished. so ya then the next day at church we didn't here the end of it. so since im new in the ward i started to tell people i was from England because i didn't want them to brag to me about oh America cant play football! so that is frustrating.

next reason why i hate ghana. ive had a big headache for like 3 days now... that techinichally isnt Ghanas fault but i really want someone to blame so that is who.

I hurt my ankle today playing football i think it might be swollen tomorrow, oh well

This week has been kinda hard and i don't know why, my heart just really hasnt been in it. but on a good note i actually finished the book of mormon for the third time yesterday! thats sweet i guess. i really like reading it, the only problem is i actually fall asleep quite often when reading, waking up at six every day is hard. but to make that easier ive started working out. ive been doing alot of sets of stuff so i can make myself toned, but ill probably get lazy again in about a month or after i leave this apartment and all this work will be for nothing lol

Transfer day is today. we dont have the phone so president sabey could have already called, but we don't think that either of us are going anywhere.

This week we bought a super cool mouse trap. and we caught like 4 mice! we actually think that we killed all of them! so cross your fingers! this trap is sweet it totally crushed those guys and i just told those dead mice thats what you get for pooping on my stuff! haha we still have cats living in the ceiling, they get in fights sometimes and we here them its kinda annoying. one more great thing about my apt is that the kitchen sink is now clogged sweet huh! haha

i havent checked how many contacts i have left. i will this week so that i can tell you ok! but i think i should be needing some in the next maybe like three months. i wear them almost every day, and i only use them once. its so convenient just throwing it away i love one use contacts!

thats about all thats happening right now. we are going over to the Suame apartment with elder Jackson to have a birthday party kinda thing and make cakes so that should be fun. Me and elder Lunt are getting along fine. he's a cool guy i like him. hes really intense and has tons of energy all the time. he likes to walk fast i like to walk slow. he likes to spend money i try and save it. ha but everything is cool.

sorry again that i cant send a picture. these cafes arent allowing me to because the towers are inside wood boxes. so hopefully next week! ive got alot of seriously sweet pictures, also i need to burn my last SD card and send it home, ill get around to that soon hopefully ok! be excited! thanks for the package im excited to get it.

love ya

Quinton

Email from Elder Togagae (former companion)

According to tranfers thi week . i dont know i tranfers or not. i will wait for that. write know the man is ready for the baptism 2 more week. everything is going well in my area. thank you.

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

it has been a nice time here in Ghana and we are enjoying the world cup i mean in term of the goal we have as a mission normally from the look of things i went for USA but unfortunally Ghana won but for the world cup champion is still Brazil of Argentina

The mission goal has been in our mind so this is the time to fill our teaching pool with more people becos the match will soon end and if it does then the next thing will be baptizing those we contact so for now we just focus on baptizing those people so we have been teaching many lesson

Yes this is tranfer week for now i don`t know we will be recieve the news this evening we have been getting alone. and his name is Temesgen

thanks for your prayer for the lord has help us to has one with a Baptismal date which will be the day the world cup ends also have a nice week

Thursday, June 24, 2010

10 months! seriously...

Email sent Monday 21 June 2010

so ya i have been in Ghana for 10 months now... that is pretty cool im happy with myself it has been along time but it also feels like it really hasnt been that long. This week was good we have a ton of really good investigators and even some baptisms coming up. You were correct i did have my baptism for both Rebecca to complete the goal, and one other guy! unfortunately i wasnt able to go to the baptism. my companion had malaria yesterday and we were planning on going but he was totally out. he was throwing up and pooping tons so we just stayed inside all day. im happy they were able to get baptized though. we have another baptism coming up this week for my new ward in Bantama! we will be baptizing a 9 year old girl and then like a 18 year old girl. and we have some other ones coming up soon. Bantama is a sweet area.

Right now it is pouring rain outside...

so sometimes i forget that i am actually in Ghana, but this week was a reminder of that. we were at a members house and we were eating i had some fufu which was sweet. they told us they were serving us bush meat, which is called grass cutter, or a really big rat. so we were kinda like ok. Its supposed to be a big delicacy here. ive had it before and its not actually too bad but i was eating the thing. and was kinda preoccupied but then looked down at the meet and saw two big teeth........ Indeed i was eating a rat face! haha it first of all scared the crap out of me, but then i took a picture and everything was cool. i kinda didn't want to eat the rest of the rat face after i new what it was, but whatever. When in Ghana do as the Ghanaians. so i ate rat face...

The apartment in Bantama is kinda crappy, let me give you a list of reasons.

There are cats living in our ceilings

Rats/mice live somewhere in the apt...we find mice poop everywhere

Our rooms are small

the bathroom is puny

This is an ongoing list but its ok i don't care we have fun there.

Im sorry im not sending a picture again, the card reader that i have wont fit into the plug cuz its too big, so next week for sure well send some.

Elder Lunt has a washing machine in this apartment which is a lifesaver. im gonna die if i have to go back to handwashing, my hands are all soft and everything now. but hopefully i just get good luck and move into apartments with washers.

we were at the cafe on friday because Elder Lunt was just sent a camera that somehow got broken in shipping so he had to email his family to find out what to do.

I think i told you about football last week, after we came home i had a freaking sick sunburn line and i took a picture of it and was planning on sending it to you but it will have to wait. its funny, its a total distinct line between red and white. i guess that is the curse of being a Petersen. i hope i marry a tan person so my kids don't have those genes!

We heard America got robbed and should have won there game in the world cup which is really dissapointing. Ghana has gotten lucky with both of their goals being from penalty kicks, and the whole nation still goes crazy even though their just getting lucky. ha but ya. Ghanaians seriously think ghana will win the world cup, which definitely wont happen. i would love to see a Ghana vs USA match. the US would kill them!

i can't believe its already time for the country fest back home, thats so weird. the time is coming by, before you know it it will be December....!

love you

Quinton

Email from Elder Togagae (former companion)

Re: Baptism this week!

thank you the baptism is going well. I miss him in this baptism he call me on Saturday he told me him and his companion they come to the baptism. on sunday he text me they not come to the baptism because of his companion have sich. thank everything going well in this area. According to the new goal we have boy in the new goal he 28 year old he came to church two sunday and he want to be baptise we will still teach him.thank you hear about sister Petersen she doing well. the work is find if pray and fast that why we see more blessing. because of my time, wants again thank you very much.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I just played 90 minutes of legit soccer!

Email sent Monday 14 June 2010

So right now i seriously feel like i am on a runners high because we just had our zone versus zone football match on a full grass pitch. Because of the transfer i just switched zones so now i am in Bantama zone. i was playing mid fielder because they needed me to run a ton. i was playing both defense and striking so needless to say i ran a ton. i think i ran about 4 miles...seriously no joke. and im out of shape but it felt sweet! The unfortunate news is that our zone lost 3-1 :( dumb huh). Everyone gets to play... sometimes i get frustrated because im too competitive. oh well. I had some legit shots on goal but the other team had a good keeper so they didn't go, but i was really the only one who was shooting. oh ya and i bought some sweet football boots that i played in today it was way nice. There called Adidas Predetors and i got them for 35 citis, not bad for like 100 dollar shoes :)!

So yup i got transfered and now im in a new area. The area is actually really sweet and me and elder lunt get along really well. He was in the Army back home so he is kind of an intense guy but i like him and we get along and work together well. His last companion was a nigerian. Lunt is a good guy and a very hard working missionary so we'l enjoy for however long we're together. We ride bikes sometimes to get to our appointments and lunt got in a crash the other day. it was kinda funny he just went right over the handlebars. he had some scrapes but other than that he was totally fine lol. I am now in an apartment with the Bantama zone leaders as well which is Elder White from vernal, and Izekor from Nigeria. Lunt has been training elder White because he wants to get skinny before he goes home so i kinda joined this last week and my abs have never been so freaking sore! lol i don't really care about getting in shape right now but its a fun way to pass the time in the apartment! Our apartment is puny it kinda stinks. My room in the apartment is like 3x smaller than in the UST apartment, there is only enough room for both our beds and a dresser lol. but its still cool.

This area is right by the center of town so it is really really busy, but we also travel out to some smaller villages just oustide of town too so its really nice. We have some serious investigators and the ward is really helpful. The guy from West Jordan is named Elder Hernandez and this is his first transfer and he is probably one of the funniest people i have ever met! he is Elder Jackson's companion and they are in our district so thats sweet.

Its raining pretty much every day now, at one point it can be clear and sunny and then five minutes later it will be the biggest downpour you have ever seen its crazy. i really like the rainy season because its colder at night. i don't even use my fan anymore because i get cold lol. I take cold showers, we don't have water heaters here and i really don't care anymore i love the cold water it feels so freaking good after a long hot day proselyting.

The world cup is freaking crazy.. like seriously it is on everywhere it is so hard not too watch it. especially when USA was playing england. England is a very good team and everyone under estimates the US and they actually tied which is sweet! so cheer on the US for me, and Ghana. the country went crazy when they scored yesterday even though it was only a crappy penalty kick. we get updates from some members and investigators of the games so were not totally in the dark, but ya i wish i could watch... oh well.

Next sunday will be the baptism for Rebecca and well be going to UST for that so itll be cool to finally have the goal finished.. im excited. Interviews with President are tomorrow, i seriously cant believe this transfer is already over it really is going by fast now! and its almost my birthday :)

love you

Quinton

Email from Elder Togogae (former companion)

thank you for that, but for me when the time president call Elder Petersen to tranfer another area, i am so sad because me and Petersen doing well in our area and also this week to complete our goal as a missionary. A part from that dont worried about that we meet him every monday. to night our family home evening we invite him and his companion for this activity. in this ward they miss him because of his good work.

the weather in ghana is to hot for me i sent a letter to my family and sent to them last week i recive a email from USA my brother in Wasington my oldest brother is marriage the work is doing well thank you very much. i hope Sister Petersen doing well in her mission may God bless her to continue to do the good work.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

So alot actually happened

Email sent Monday 7 June 2010

Hey whats up! today i have the card reader back so i can start sending you pictures again the picture is just of me outside of my old apartment in UST...... so now you are probably thinking why is that your old apartment in ust. Well the answer is that i have been transfered! ha cool huh. ya so yesterday i was just sitting in church minding my own business and i look down at the phone, it says i have two missed calls. one was from the zone leaders and one was from President Sabey, i thought to myself hey maybe this is important so i went and called the zone leaders and they told me to call president. So i call President and he says …… ha so I have been transfered to a place called bantama. its still in Kumasi, but i am in a different zone. My new companion is named elder Lunt and he is from Kaysville utah. so me and another guy named elder uka just switched places. so i had to pack all of my things yesterday and bring them to the Pday activity so that we could switch. I was really surprised when this happened and it kinda made me sad because me and elder Togagae were just getting our area really going and doing well, but i guess all change comes about for a reason. Aparently President thought i was the right guy to be put here.

So ya that happened all yesterday and today. this week before that was really sweet though. We werent able to see Rebecca all week. we went to the market where she works every single day, and the other ladies just kept saying "o yare" which means shes sick. which stunk so we didn't get to see her and we dont know where her house is. but she came to church again this week. she really has been prepared for us because i don't feel like we really even did anything. we taught her while she was at church and she said that this is going to be the church that i die in! ha so we were already gonna give her a baptismal date but that was sweet. we were talking about baptism and just talking about what it was, it was funny she just interuppted us and said "da ben" which means when. ha so we gave her the baptismal date for two weeks from yesterday! shes excited and so am i! even though im in a new area ill be able to go to the baptism and that will complete the goal for me! also the rest of our district completed the goal last week so we really progressed, our mission will complete it! ha

We played ultimate frisbee today, i love frisbee! so that was cool, and we also played a ton of football, my new companion really loves football so we will enjoy together. im getting better though even today i scored like 3 goals! i know im legit....

i cant really think of anything that i despereately need right now. you should just surprise me! ha switch things up and add some other stuff. but i really do like skittles so that could be something you get me... or a can of Vault idk just a suggestion :)

Yes i wear my retainers

yes it will be hard not to watch the football matches. there are tv's everywhere here and really the only thing ever on them is football, and that is all people are gonna be doing for the next month, i will be happy after it is july 12 cuz it will finally be over and i don't have to worry about that.

Oh ya im not district leader anymore over here because there is already a district leader in the district. which is totally cool with me! ha Elder Jackson will be in my district which is sweet! we just seem to always be put close together on mission. his companion is cool too its a guy from west jordan.

so ya thats pretty much how the week went! im enjoying my time here im wondering how the rest of this transfer will go but im sure it will be cool. we get along well.

sorry about the fish hook that kinda stinks...one more thing, last night was the biggest rainstorm i think ive ever seen! it was so loud inside our apartment i couldnt hear anything it was crazy! the rainy season is really starting now though so its cooling down a bit, but not enough that i don't get sunburned on Pday lol..im so white

love,

Quinton
Quinton outside UST apartment

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

Re: It is getting hot here

For us it has been a raining days for us because for almost all of African from the month of march through the month of September it is normally know as the raining season where we experience much rain and now we are also experiencing rain but no snow

That is really an interesting goal for us as missionaries most especially we the African but we are praying for strength to be able to fulfill the goal. like i said ghana love football and there even place where the football we be show on the street and we have to be careful

i will somehow say yes but we can`t becos we have enter into a covenant not to watch

most Nigerian (Elder Joseph is from Nigeria) love football and i think i am one of them but that would be a problem my favorite sport has been football and volleyball and i hope that our heavenly father will give us the strength to accomplish this great task ahead of us

have a wonderful week like for us we have been bless and we hope to receive more

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

So much happening!

Email sent Monday 31 May 2010

I remember those last couple of days before i left for the MTc it was crazy! we had to do so much stuff, and i am sure that this week was the same way for you guys it sounded pretty hectic, but im glad that you guys got through it ok! sorry i havent sent pictures for a couple weeks. the card reader i have been using I let elder Jackson borrow so he could use it becuase his broke or something, but hopefully by next week ill have it back and ill be able to send you some pictures.

We had zone conference this last week, where both Kumasi zones came together and got to hear from President and Sister Sabey and the Ap's. it was a good zone conference so i enjoyed it! they also told us that on the 14 th of june we will be playing a full football match on a full pitch zone versus zone in Kumasi and President sabey will be the ref! im freaking pumped for that because i havent played on a legit field for quite a while, because the chapels fields here are small. but ya, im also thinking about buying some soccer boots (cleats) because ive always wanted some since i got here, so next week im gonna go to one missionaries recent convert and buy some legit boots for like 30 citis! so i am excited for that. i think that our zone will win the football match.

Over here in the UST area we have just had the college students leave from school, so our proselyting area is alot more empty. its kinda sad seeing it so deserted right now, it reminds me of when i was leaving from college like a year ago. i seriously didn't want to come back home. no offense to you guys but i seriously loved college! ha but ya so our ward has reduced in size a little bit cuz most of the college students are gone but its still going good. our district is making some really good strives to complete the goal. because as of now we only have 5 weeks left to do it which is not much at all. but we should have two companionships finished next week and then two very soon after! Rebecca (the lady we are teaching whos husband is a member) is way sweet, we werent even able to see her this week because she traveled but she still came to mid week and church! we are planning to have a baptism with her and a few other people on the 20th of June, so be excited for that cuz im pumped!

Ive noticed something, whenever people write me they always talk about the little kids here in Ghana, they say oh their so adorable and all this sort of stuff. but i have come to a conclusion, there are only two types of kids in Ghana the ones that are adorable and you want to put in your suitcase and take home with you (with an oxygen mask of course) and then there are the ones you want to dropkick off a bridge. haha some of them are seriously annoying and the constant yelling of oburoni kinda gets to you sometimes. but i love the kids most of the time, its just those few instances that is like ahhh!

The Elders in my district right now are Elder Jeppsesen from idaho, isagara from uganda, togagae fro Samoa, Harrison from Sandy, Clements from idaho, Matheson from West jordan, and ekaette from Nigeria. i like our district, its fun. for district meeting last week we played scum! ha it was awesome.

Thats all i really got for now, but enjoy these days relaxing! oh and you should send me that ensign soon! because i wanna read it! ....and look at the pictures

love you

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

Re: Melinda is Off to the MTC

That really is a large group of mission at a time in the mtc (note: We dropped Melinda off at the Provo MTC on Wednesday and they said there were 500 missionaries coming in that day) in our we were only 38 missionaries and we think that it is too plenty for one mtc president to train all of us i think she will wonderful experience will the missionaries

i hope your other daughter will still go on a mission that will be a wonderful family i pray that mine will one day be like that. that has been my plan from the time i started my mission because i have seen many blessing that come from serving the lord on a mission

the lord has been helping us as the day goes by and mission is gradually becoming interesting and my prayer is that the people i teach should people that will remain as our president will always tell us

have a wonderful week

Monday, May 24, 2010

Farewells!

Email sent Monday 23 May 2010

Ha, i miss farewells, i wish that i could have been there.. mostly because of all the sweet food that is there :) i, much like brandy really really like food, so i miss normal food alot, but oh well ill get over it. even without all of that good food i am still somehow finding a way to become fat... well not really fat but im bigger. maybe im growing and i just think im getting fat! ya well go with that, i think im growing (probably not)

Im glad that cookie enjoyed the farwell! im still hoping that by some chance she will be alive when i get home because i don't want her to die... i didn't tell you guys this when i left but she was the only person that i almost cried when i was saying goodbye. i don't know i guess i have a thing for dogs. Especially golden retrievers! or whatever cookie is.

I need like 9 two cent stamps, so if you could send those that would be just peachy!

So this week actually quite alot happened. because as you know last week was transfers, and guess what i got transfered to the Ivory Coast! ha just kidding im still in my same area and i still have the same companion which is totally sweet and im fine with that. Elder Lehr and Harris both got transfered to Assin Fosu, and some new people came into our district. I was actually called to be District Leader which is kinda weird i still feel like a small guy that doesnt know anything lol. but ya, im actually really nervous to do a baptismal interview, but im sure once i do it it will be fine..hopefully!

Ha we are continuing to teach Rebecca in the crazy market, and she is way sweet! ha she now has come to church two times in a row and her husband said that she even wants to be baptized! were totally stoked about that because it would fulfill our family goal that we have been given! We're also working with some less actives that are part members families too but they so far havent seen much progressing. There is only six weeks left to complete the goal and right now our district is struggling so we really need to buckle down and do this thing!

I have plenty of time to write you guys so don't even worry about it! Mario teaches typing has done wonders for me. Sorry if my emails have been short lately but its just cuz not much new is happening, but ill try to keep the emails interesting and maybe spice them up a bit with false stories like how me and my companion got chased by a lion through the african jungle! ha

love ya

Quinton

Email from Elder Togagae (current companion)

Re: Quinton's sister

thank again for your e mail i know she enjoy her mission one of my cozen she finish her mission from that place she enjoy she went 2004 thank you very much dont worried about elder petersen he doing well. He is my district leader in my District it is a big man . have a nice week.

Email from Elder Joseph (former companion)

Re: Melinda's (Quinton's sister) farewell

That is wonderful and i am so happy to be with your son on same mission and even as a companion i hope to be with him once more before i go home the mission is sweet for i have seen the blessing in life and i know elder petersen has same testimony about the work as i do

so now are you alone or you still have other children preparing to go on a mission or if there is any one left at home if there is greet them for me

have a wonderful week

Monday, May 17, 2010

This email is in tribute to my pen that has lasted me 9 months of mission!!!

Email sent Monday 17 May 2010

Hey family, so ya the same pen i have been using every day, except for writing in my journal has now lasted me 9 whole months! the little guy is a trooper and i am proud of him. he is still going strong so im hoping he'll last at least a year. so we will see. i like how i am referring to a pan as he... whatever.

First thing, i thought we still had a goldfish, when did he die? i must not have loved him that much or i probably would have known he was dead. oh well guess i can't eat him. too bad

Second thing. Happy Birthday Brandy! wooo! you probably thought that i forgot but i didn't i really did remember. and your way lucky you got to celebrate your birthday at state track and field, i wish i could have been there. lol those are quite possibly my two most favorite days of the year! so ya im glad that you had a good birthday!

So this week went by really really fast, and even today is transfer day! crazy it has already been one transfer that i have been with this crazy Samoan guy! ha but i really do love him, he always keeps me laughing. we'll probably stay together for a little while so i don't think that i will be getting transfered but hey anything can happen! We had to take him to the hospital this week because he says that he broke a tooth or something like that, so we had to go to the hospital and wait there pretty much all day for them to tell us that we had to come back this friday. im not exactly sure what they need to do, but hopefully it doesnt take to long and doesnt interfere with too much proselyting time.

The Assistants went on splits with our apartment this week, and we went with a guy named Elder Dunford. he is sweet and was my zone leader back in Takoradi. We had a good day going with them. its good going on splits because it kinda motivates you and you also learn new ways to teach things and stuff, so that was fun.

I want to know what is my blood type. i always forget so if you could tell me that would be sweet.

We are teaching a lady right now named Rebecca. we have only taught her a few times. her husband is a member and so she would fulfill the family goal that we have. the only problem is that she only speaks twi. ha so we always have to bring members with us when we teach her... the other problem is that she always works inside of a market in our area. ha so the market is one of the busiest and loudest places ever, and its not exactly a prime lesson spot, but thats where we have to teach her lol. ha but she is way cool, and guess what she came to church yesterday! so we are hoping that as we continue teaching her she'll keep coming to church. So the goal is coming along, slowly but surely, were praying that these few possibilities we have will work out.

On Saturdays we usually travel out to a little town called Fumusua and we have some people we are teaching there, this saturday we went out there and when we were coming back it started to pour rain. and the place where we get off of the trotro is about a mile from our apartment, so we got out of the trotro and started booking it back to the apt. but it was pouring so hard we got totally drenched lol but it was seriously fun just running in the rain and getting totally soaked!

ha so ya i am sending two pictures again! they are both of me and Elder Togagae. in one of them we are being thugs lol, Elder Togagae looks like a mexican with that hat on lol. and the other one is just us at our chapel.

it doesnt take long to download pictures so you can always send them that would be sweet :)

i love you guys- and girls :)

Quinton
Elder Togagae and Elder Petersen at Chapel in Kumasi

Email from current companion Elder Togagae

Re:  Fun to talk to you

well thank you for your e-mail to me i hope to continue to do the good work with my brother this time for me i am very happy, to serve with elder Petersen, thank for your advise thank for allow me to talk to you family. May God to continue to bless your family.

Email from former companion Elder Joseph

Re:  busy week

we were doing fine and the mission goal is sweet it help us to have direction in our work though sometime it is reaaly hard to fine this people to teach but all is well

it really hard to fine family but we were able to teach a part-member family and baptize her and now we have accomplish our part of the goal but we still have to work hard for other missionaries in case they need help so that we can accomplish the goal as a mission

sometime the work look hard and truely the area elder petersen is serving is a unversity area so it very hard to teach family but i know that somehow they will fulfill their part

Have a wonderful week also

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Hey.......

Email sent Monday 10 May 2010

so i don't have a whole lot to say since we just talked yesterday. ha but i am finally sending some more pictures! sweet huh. one picture is of me from last pday were i was all in the mud and stuff. That picture was even after i had cleaned off a little bit so you can imagine how dirty i was! the other picture is kinda crappy quality but its of me pounding fufu the other day. right before i ate fufu and huge freaking snails! those snails were so weird but i ate like three the size of my hand so ya! the taste didn't really bug me it was just the texture that was kinda weird. needless to say i wont be cathcing the snails in our garden when i come home! ha but if our fish is still alive i might just eat him! haha jk but seriously i might! ive never tasted goldfish before

As far as all of the districts in the mission i really don't know all of them. i can probably name all of the zones. lets see there is Takoradi, Sekondi, Abura, Cape Coast, Swedru, Dichemso, and Bantama. im pretty sure that that is all of the zones in the mission.

I can't remember what i spent the money on. but it was a neccesity thats all i really remember! haha jk i think some of it was from the 3 times we ate pizza and then some other small things. i still have most of the stuff i just took out and ill be buying the scripture bags with that stuff.

I am really tired and have a big headache so i think that that will have to suffice for the email today! ha it will be better next week when i haven't talked to you in like a week!

love ya

Quinton


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

I'm sunburnt

Email sent Monday 3 May 2010

What else is new.. its a Pday. today was freaking tiring. we went to Bantama today because we were playing a legit full pitchfootball game with the missionaries against bantama ward. of course all the Ghanaians showed up late which was really frustrating. but we finally started to play and got the thing going. we were playing on a dirt field and it has been raining alot lately so it was kinda muddy in parts... the first play of the game i was running and had beat my defender and was going for the goal until i ran into the mud... i hit the dirt hard and got all muddy and had to play like that for the rest of the game. man i was freaking angry. playing on dirt is way harder than playing on grass. so i was angry the rest of the game. but i have some sweet battle wounds now! ha but once again i forgot to bring my card reader so i cant send pictures today but i will soon i promise! ha i got ElderClements to takepictures of the game so he got some good ones!

its crazy to think back home what is happening. you guyshave to be super busy! its already the end of school and this week i realized that state (track & field) was coming up in like two weeks. i have already been gone for a full year of school whichi think is pretty cool. so the time is moving no matter how slow or fast it feels sometimes. The back of my eears are sun burnt.

The Harmatan is over now, and it came way later than usual. i was expecting to miss it cuz i was in takoradi, but when i got to kumasi is right when it started. it was kinda like fog.. but with dust. it really stunk, it made my contacts all dry and covered everything in our rooms with like small films of dust. but now the rainy season is coming on, so it rains about every other night! one thing that i seriously love is falling asleep to the sound of rain. maybe ill move to oregon when i get home so that can happen even when im home.

Yes i hold the phone in our apartment.. im the oldest guy in the apartment which is weird because i feel like a small boy still! Me and Elder Lehr are actually the oldest in the district too... our mission is young.

Elder Togagae Emails but he doesnt do it for too long. idon't think he is very good at typingso he doesnt type alot. Mario teaches typing is a serious blessing in my life :) his email is ...... so you could email him if you want! he is good at english, but hes not the best. he can get his point across but sometimes its hard and he doesnt make sense but he is fine! he is a sweet guy. hes not the best at teaching but we are progressing. once again this goal is not easy. we don't have a solid family that we are teaching which stinks.. we have been working with a ward member whos wife is not a member and he said he would bring her to church next week! so that should be cool. we are seeing them on wednesday. Elder Isagara is progressing, we are kinda breaking him in!  A mission does really make people change so you just have to experience it.

as for the phone call i really don't know what time im gonna call you yet. we will do a test call with my new chip maybe friday or saturday and we can figure that out ok! thanks so expect a phone call sometime then!B

Brandy your ceramics are legit!

i love you, pictures next week i promise!

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph (a former companion)

Re: Mother's Day is coming

That is wonderful to have a duagther serving a mission and that will really help her to prepare forthe rest of her life and tell her that she should go with faith and the lord will be with her and that she will have many stories to tell when she return

it wonderful for us we just have our vidoe conference yesterday and it was wonderful to hear from the general authorities most espacially elder jeffrey R Holland on the saturday session it is really inspiraing and it gave me the zeal to do the work more

it exiciting to have mother`s day coming soon the only day to hear from my family again and i am looking to that day though in ghana it is not a big celebration but for we it is a big one for us to have the chance to speak to our families

i am so gateful to have your son as a companion even thoug i am not with them i can still remeber those days

Have a wonderful weeks and prepare your sister missionary that the day will come and one wonderful thing is that i left home the same day she will leave home to the mtc and it will be five days after my birthday which is 21 may so tell her to keep the good work going