idk my bff jill

Email sent 18 Jan 2010

(Note:  for those who don't know, the title stands for 'I don't know my best friend forever jill' which is from a commercial for a cell phone company.)

Ha sorry i was just thinking about that phone commercial were that girl says it so i decided to put that as the subject line! ha so ya We are not quite sure what Elder Joseph has had, it is actually getting worse right now. it seems alot like alergies or a cold so hopefully it gets better soon. He has been sneezing and sniffing all week!

All right now onto the big news... what happened on Transfers. not much, but alot at the same time. We got the call right after we got home from the beach last monday and the first thing they tell us is that Jackson will be transfered to Kumasi. That was sad because we had gotten to be really good friends because we have been together for our entire mission. So then after they told us that we then wondered what was gonna happen to us. Well now Me, Elder Joseph, and Elder Hill are in a threesome! It's really weird, we are not quite sure why President decided to do this, but so now we are all companions, and there is only us three living in our apartment. So we are covering both of our old areas, and we decided that we will switch off days. So i am still in Kojokrom, but half of the week we are also in Sofokrom and Inchaban. Its really weird because really nothing changed but alot did at the same time!

Thats funny that you are reading books about running, now you are learning all of the things that i already now :) lol that whole running barefoot is called minimalistic or something like that running. and that is why i actually got the Nike Free's. because they are supposed to simulate barefoot running and make your feet stronger. ha so im glad you guys are learning cool things! youll have to refresh my memory when i get home because ill probably have forgotten alot of it!

We heard about the earthquake in Haiti and that sounded really bad. Just this morning at 4 AM we recieved a call from our zone leaders that we needed to leave our house because there had been an earthquake warning for all of Ghana. So we went outside and sat around for a while. we thought it was kinda weird because everyone was outside. Somehow someone had said that their was gonna be an earthquake. We later found out that it was fake and somehow every single person in Ghana had been notified to something that was fake! haha so its ok there aren't any earthquakes here. But you are right if there was we would be in trouble because all of the buildings are made from cement so there would definitely be some problems!

I saw a goat get killed this week.... haha we were just walking out of our apartment and were passing by this chop bar (resteraunt) right by our house and there was our neighbor holding a knife to the goats neck. he was killing it for the resteraunt. and so we just watched as he killed it. It was kinda gross, but it was one of those things were your disgusted but can't look away. sorry if that grosses you out :)

We had a sweet lesson this week with one lady we have been teaching for a while. Her name is Beatrice. and we had a whole lesson plan of the things that we were going to teach her and everything, and for some reason going into the lesson i just changed it. I know that it was the spirit helping me to say what she needed to hear! the lesson went really well, but we need to get her to start coming to church again! we'll work on that next week!

The Africa cup of NAtions has just started so once again Ghana shuts down whenever there is a football match. It was funny actually Ghana was playing Ivory Coast and they lost by alot so everyone in Ghana was way sad.

Well so ya thats it for this week, right now i have two companions, we are having a baptism this week with 3 of Elder Hills investigators so that should be sweet!

Olive juice

Quinton

my riding a way small bike at our bishops house.. all these little kids were chasing me and screaming, it was way funny :)

Email from Elder Joseph

we are still together as a missionary in the same apartment and the work is going forward greatly just that i am sick this past day but i am getting better gradually

Transfers are this week not last week

Email sent 11 Jan 2010

So we still don't know what will be happening with anything to do with that stuff. We will probably be getting a call later today about that stuff and we will figure that all out! So you will just have to wait till next week to hear what is happening to me. There are i think only 4 or 6 missionaries coming to the mission this transfer so it is a lot smaller of a group then the last couple have been. Elder Joseph and i's proselyting area is Kojokrom and we are the only ones that proselyte there. but the other elders proselyte in ares that are really close by. There is a place called Nketziakrom, and Mpinstin that are the other two wards that worship at our chapel. And those are covered by the elders in the other Apartment nearby. Elder JAckson and Hill's area is called Sofokrom and they have to take a trotro every day to get there because it is pretty far away. and they have there own chapel. That chapel is cool because it is the oldest chapel in Ghana and was built right when the church started coming to Ghana by the members! Our zone has 14 missionaries in it including the two zone leaders, and there are two districts within each zone. My zone leaders right now are Elder Halling from California and Elder Adamson from Ghana.

Sounds like Tyler Dean has his work cut out for him! playing the piano all of the time. ha i was always so nervous when i would have to play the piano at things like that.. i don't know why, and i would always make alot of mistakes and i felt like people were judging me lol. Since i have been here though it has been sweet. I feel like i have been given the gift of keys... i just made that up. But i haven't had any problem playing any of the hymns which is sweet so i can just play any hymn that they ask to in Sacrament or whether it is for the ward choir! I feel blessed that it has actually been that easy to do that, and it really does help the ward sing not quite as bad as they usually do.

I don't usually print out the emails, that would cost too much. It costs 20 Peswas to print one page, and usually costs 90 Peswas for the time we spend at the cafe. but all of that stuff is covered by the subsistence that we have been given.. i have become pretty good at managing my money which i think is a really cool new skill! i am able to manage my sub really well so i can have plenty for the 4 weeks sub is given!

So do you like the Boney M? ha its kinda funny.. but ya i would say that the most misused piece of equipment in Ghana is the Speakers. on any given street corner there is someone blasting music and if you are close by you can't even hear yourself talk. its actually pretty annoying, and that is were we hear all the Boney M. its funny while we have been at the cafe we sometimes hear someone blasting Mormom Tabernacle choir outside, and so we think that is really cool.

So this week was a struggle. The water in our apartment was out for three days straight! so we were having to buy a huge bag of pure water bags and bring them to our apartment. we had to use them to cook to clean and even to shower! Have you ever tried Showering with 1 liter of water, well its weird i will tell you! ha but the water is back now and we are showering like normal human beings again it is sweet!

Elder Joseph has been getting somehow sick this last few days. Apparently 8 missionaries in our mission right now have the swine flu! and thats what it might be with elder joseph. so we have been taking it kinda easy the last couple days. We had a big training with all of the ward missionaries in our wards, and kind of taught them more about missionary work and about preach my gospel. The ward missionaries in my ward are so freaking sweet. They help us out so much and im so greatful for them! It will be way weird if i am transferedd because i don't want to leave my ward because i really like them and they are really helpful in doing all of the proseltying and everything. but i guess thats part of being a missionary!

I'll write you next week with more stories about investigators and things! i love ya'll

Quinton

PS the picture that i am sending is me standing by a car that looks exactly like ours back home! and i almost got arrested for taking this picture! lol it was funny as Elder Joseph was taking the picture this guy came up to us and started yelling and said we need to ask permission first and all of this crazy stuff, so we told him he could take us to the police if he wanted too. He would have looked so dumb if he had taken us there and said i want these people arrested for taking a picture.. so obviously he didn't do anything and we still have this picture! ha so our car is in Ghana too!

Click on the picture which will make it bigger and take a close look at the store names as well as the people.  Note the lady in back by the building has a cushion on her head that the people use when they carry things on their heads.  There is a lady behind the table to Quinton's left.  Notice the items on the tables out in front of the stores.  Really interesting seeing how the people do things in Ghana.

Email from Elder Joseph

We are still together as companion and today will be transfer news so we will know if we are still together but we have a wonderful time together in kojokrom ward.

For fante i am trying best to learn but not all that good. here we help people to pound fufu for the investigator and members and is a wonderful experience and that is one of my service i can do well.

for cooking i am not all that good but i can prepare some of my local meals.

For africa the weather is always warm or hot and a few time cold and we do not experience inversion

for the numbers of children there alot of them in our ward and i do not teach any class

thank for all you done i hope of having more time with elder Petersen on the mission field

hope to hear from you again

Another semi good week

Email sent 3 Jan 2010

so this week was kinda cool because we still had that whole christmas spirit thing going which is cool, but it is also sad because we are leaving Christmas time. the past few weeks have been going by pretty slowly and that is annoying because i like it when the time goes by fast!!!

There were a couple of things that made it so that the time really did go by slowly this week. On tuesday the power in our apartment went out, and that is usually a normal thing, but then we went to look at the meter and there was still power to it so we really didn't know what was going on. We talked to the power company and found out that it was of no fault of theres so we found out that there is some sort of problem with the electricity in out house itself :( It took quite a while to figure this out actually so we had no power in our room until Saturday night! when we had an electrician come and they found out that our whole breaker box had blown a huge fuze and melted and stuff so we had to get that thing fixed... but its all better and working now and that is really all that matter!

So while this was going on i had a little bout of sickness as well... On Wednesday night i wasnt feeling to good so i went to bed and was still not feeling good. i woke up in the night at about 1 i think and had to take a trip to the bathroom, and i through up, and that is when the floodgates opened! so i was throwing up all night, and then about halfway through the night i started to have diareha as well :( so i was literally flowing from both ends at the same time. Eventually it somehow calmed down and i went back to bed. So when i woke up in the morning i knew that i had some sort of Malaria because i was throwing up, pooping rivers, had a fever of 101.7, and was super achy everywhere so i called sister Sabey and she told me what i already knew.. i have Malaria again :( so i called the zone leaders and had them bring over the malaria medicine. so i basically just slept and rested all day cuz i felt like total crap. Malaria isn't all that fun, but luckily i still haven't had a bad case of it yet, because when you have a bad case it puts you down for a couple days. by friday i was feeling mostly better so that was good! and now on monday i would say that im about 94% back to normal health! Oh but i went to bed at 10 on New Years eve, but luckily i woke up right before twelve and kinda just celebrated half awake.. its a new decade! wow

So that was the week in a nutshell not much proselyting activity because of all of the crazy things that happened :(

I got the package that you guys sent! it was really sweet, i got it on Saturday and once again it was totally packed full! the cookies are way good that you sent, and i thought it was way funny that you sent running articles and a picture of Usain Bolt! lol much appreciated :) The best part again was the pictures! it was really cool and the funniest ones were you and dad trying to be Ghanain with the basket on your heads, that gave us a good laugh!

Things are going really well over here, and im glad to see that you guys are doing well too! This will be the last week of this transfer, so i could be moving or staying we really have no idea, but its always a kind of anticipation waiting for the transfers to see what happens. Me and Elder Jackson have been together for our whole mission now, right from the plane flight! and it would be weird if we got seperated but i could see something like that happening this transfer, but all we can do is wait and see!

Tell cookie hi for me :)

I love ya parentals and siblings!

Quinton

Email from Elder Joseph

Thank you - I am so grateful for remembering me all the time. and most of all is this wonderful past Christmas for us as missionaries we were ask by our mission president to do serve and it make this Christmas one of my best ever.

for tennis we play some few times and Petersen is also trying i hope you also enjoy the Christmas and greet your family for me

After Christmas

Email sent 28 Dec 2009

Christmas caroling and delivering green oranges

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

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

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

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

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

I love you,

Quinton

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

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


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

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

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

Afenhyia paa!!!

Email sent 21 Dec 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brandy,

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

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

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

Love,

Quinton

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

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

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

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

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

Email sent 14 Dec 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brandy,

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

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

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

I love you,
Quinton

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

Hellow

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

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

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

The climate with Ghana is almost the same.

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

i live in a city called Warri.

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

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

Have a wonderful proselyting day and my mission prisedent advise

A Week of Christmas

Email sent 7 Dec 2009

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

but now i will write a slightly smaller version!

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

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

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

sorry this is so short!

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

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

I love you all so much,

Quinton

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