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

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

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