'Happy Christmas to us!!!"

Well, the first Christmas out of the house has come and gone. Time to clean up the trees and decor, and start a new year! So this Christmas was very special for me! I got to work!!! wooooo!!! Too fun, I know, right? ha-ha just kiddin, it was just another day here in Bragança Portugal! But it was awesome because I GOT TO SKYPE MY FAM!!! So that was the best Christmas present ever!!! On Christmas we had planned on going to a Chinese buffet... but they were closed. (Chinese don’t even celebrate Christmas... Right?!) But then we just worked a little more and then went to the chapel and cooked French toast for ourselves while the other missionaries talked to their families on Skype!! Happy Christmas to us!! ha-ha but anyway... this week was a little rough... just because everyone we talked to told us that after the holidays and what not, that they would talk to us... so we didn’t have really anything happening. Then we fasted Saturday for the Lord to help us find a family, a new branch president, and just people to teach! Sunday night, we were walking to a less active member’s house, when we passed a door that we had knocked on earlier and the lady told us to come back (everyone’s answer) later. So we knocked on that door again. The dad was home, they let us in and we taught a family of 5!!! It was definitely an answer to our fast/prayers! The Lord is awesome and I´m learning so much every day!! The Branch up here is doing alright. My job as Branch President this past Sunday was….. 1 lesson, 1 talk, pass the sacrament, direct the music, and closing prayer. Ha-ha so it’s definitely stretching me... but I’m definitely growing! Lovin it! And it’s not too cold yet... but January hasn’t come... so we´ll see! Thanks for all your prayers and support!!! Happy New Year!!! Make some good resolutions! Mine is to not gain more than 20 pounds from all the juice over here!! Love you!!!
Love Elder Quinn!

Thanks to all those who sent a little love Dallis' way!

Dallis by the Christmas tree that his family sent, covered in all the beautiful ornaments that his friends and family colored for him! Christmas 2014!

"I could not be more excited to see you guys!!!"

So I got transferred...The new area is called Bragança!!! It is basically the northernmost city of the mission... just in time for winter yay.... ha-ha. Oh gosh... I seriously don’t know what will happen... probably lots of rain. We are in a branch now... this will be my first time serving in a branch in my mission... so we´ll see. We got the calls for transfers last night, we were at one of our recent convert’s house, so I said final goodbyes, I called some members and my other recent converts, told them the news, came home packed until 1:00 am., woke up at 5:30 am., then I started traveling at 6:16 am., took a bus from 8:00 am. until 2:30 pm. all the way north... it was a ride and a half.... it was a good time for sleep. Plus I got to see beautiful sights, valleys of vineyards, little villages on every mountain with their own catholic chapels... it was a way a cool thing to see. I am excited to be in this new area and work with this branch, and freeze of course! My new companion is Elder Lee from Ephraim. He came in the same day as Elder Yancey. We´re going to have a good transfer (and Christmas) together!
Ha-ha, I could not be more excited to see you guys!!! Two weeks from this one!! I´ll let you know how the weather treats me... should be alright... we´ll see... Love you mom!!! Thanks for everything!!! Oh yah, I took a picture by the dumb and dumber sign, just for you guys!! Love you forever!!!
Love Elder Quinn!

"Now we just got to find some more to bring unto Christ!"

So this past week was awesome! We knocked on one door and an old angry French guy answered. His nephew came to the door and calmed him down by telling him that we were from the church. They let us in and we sat down with them and two African women who were cousins and the owners of the house. They offered us soup, coke, fruit, all types of things! It was soo funny! The old French guy was still pretty upset that we were in the house! But we left a good message about Jesus. Then as we were leaving it starting pouring!!! Cats and dogs! They told us that we couldn’t go out in that weather and they made us stay and sit until it let up. But we kept insisting that we needed to leave, so the Old African lady did up our jackets for us and she put our hoods on for us and was basically treating us like a mother would.... it was sooo funny! ha-ha! The mission has lots of good experiences! We also had Elder Quinton L Cook from the Quorum of the 12 apostles come and talk to us!!! It was sooooo cool! Learned so much! He told us that he knows the voice of Christ! That was theee coolest part when he said that! The night before that, we had 4 other Elders sleeping in our apartment so they could be closer to the chapel in the morning. One of them was sleeping.... and snored louder than any other person I have ever heard in my life! It was the worst night of sleep ever! ha-ha, we were all soo upset in the morning because none of us slept! I tried kicking his bed and waking him up, but he would just start snoring 5 minutes later! He also would snore sooo loud and deep that he would swallow the air and burp at the end of his snore!!! It was thee worst! We all just die laughing about it now and how miserable it was! This Saturday our district had a very special baptism. This girl named Gabriela that Elder Yancey and I found on our first night out in this area! We met with her the first week, and then marked her for baptism! She was elect! She lived in the other Elder´s area, so we passed her over and they worked really hard with her! She was still feeling a little unready for baptism, but during the interview, there’s a question that asks something like... "are you ready to make this commitment with the Lord? " and she said she wasn’t sure... so our leader was getting ready to close the interview and we would just wait on the baptism... but the spirit told him to ask the question again, and she said yes. The reason she said yes is because she is pregnant, and she said that if the baby kicked again, it would be a sign that this is what she should do. So when our leader asked the question again, the baby kicked right at that time and she knew that it was the answer! She told us that the night before we found her, she had been praying for the first time in forever, for a change. She needed something... and then we found her the very next day! The Lord is awesome! He answers our prayers always! She also chose me to baptize her which was awesome!! Unfortunately, she is headed to brazil today, but she will find the church down there and continue strong down there! We then had another baptism of an amazing elect man from Angola whose name is Edmilson! He is sooo cool! He is already excited for the temple and everything! He accepted everything as we were teaching it and was just super prepared to be part of the Lord´s church! His baptismal service was awesome as well. The Lord is the best! I love you all! This is the Church of Jesus Christ! Oh yah, we celebrated at a Chinese buffet today! It was delicious! Now we just got to find some more to bring unto Christ!
Love Elder Quinn!

"gonna keep working to find more!"

Hey there everyone at home! Thanks for the prayers and everything! They really paid off!!! Estrela and Luana got baptized!!! It was awesome!!! Such a miracle!! Golden references from the Lord! They really were sooo cool. I really wanted Elder Yancey to get to baptize during this transfer while I was training him and the Lord did everything to help us out! He put Estrela in our path, and because of her, we found her sister and now they are both baptized! It was an awesome service and the members here really helped! Elder Yancey and I worked really hard and every week our area just kept progressing! Then in the end, we saw the fruits of our labors! This transfer flewwww!!!!

So transfers happened... and Yancey and I will stay here for yet another round! Ha-ha stay tuned! Elder Ruggles got transferred unfortunately. He was awesome and we had a great time all hanging out at the house and we really got to know each other. But I´ll see him again! So big news this week, Elder Quinton L Cook is coming to our mission to talk to us!!! He´s coming to our chapel to talk with our zones. Elder Yancey and I celebrated at the pizza hut buffet today! I’m probably going to explode; it was the most American food I have eaten since chuck-a-rama back in Utah. Well, all is well here. Still got some good potential and of course, gonna keep working to find more! Pray for me to become water proof or something... because "a storm is coming. Best be ready when she does" (harry potter quote).... but yah, it’s just gonna get wetter... wooohoo.. Love you all!!!
Love Elder Quinn

"It's awesome to see the Light of Christ brighten up their lives!"

Happy Halloween!

So this week I will be hitting 8 months! I cannot believe how fast time has gone! 1/3 of my mission,... already gone. It has literally flown. And things are going great here in the great area of Oeiras! President Flukiger gave every companionship the challenge to baptize two people within the past 4 weeks until this next Sunday, the 9th of November. So Elder Yancey and I have been doing everything within our power to talk to everyone. We have been knocking on tons of doors, and we stop everyone on the street that will listen, to find these two that President wanted us to. It was rough but we kept moving forward with faith, everyday just relying more on The Lord, until one night we stopped a girl named Estrela. We walked with her to her house, talked about The Book of Mormon, marked her for baptism right there on the street, then came back the next day, found her sister in her house, Luana, and gave her a Book of Mormon, marked her for baptism, and then they both came to church with us! They love the Book of Mormon and the gospel of Jesus Christ and they are very excited for their baptism this Sunday! This was awesome to see that President really did have an inspired goal for us and Yancey and I knew we would be able to find these people that were ready, by just working. So that’s what we did. They really are the most awesome pair of sisters and it’s awesome to get to see the Light of Christ brighten up their lives! They were a blessing for sure!

So enough with the spiritual stuff. ha-ha jk... but anyway Halloween here... was the same as any other missionary day... got some extra candy... ( I treat myself a lot... so I got a little more this time..) and I got to see a kid dressed up like Harry Potter for Halloween so that was cool! But the kids here don’t usually go around at night. They go in the morning dressed normally and do, Pão de Deus or something like that... and they go door to door and get candy... but whatever. So November First came and you best believe that we got some Christmas music playing already!!! gotta start decorating soon!!! Well that’s about it for now. Thanks for all your prayers and love and support! Love you all forever!
Love Elder Quinn!

"still having a great time"

This week was awesome! We got to go to a 5 star hotel (we didn’t stay the night) to sing at a mission presidents conference! All the mission presidents of every mission were there and we sang Called to serve in Portuguese #ofcourse. It was awesome! The spirit was soo strong! Our mission president, President Fluckiger and his wife were crying, and all the other mission presidents wives were also! It was awesome!!! Unfortunately, the baptismal font has not been filled for me and Elder Yancey, but we are working our behinds off to encounter those Elects! We have a lady that is pretty elect! We marked her for baptism in the street; she says she has been praying for a renewance of her baptism! So we´ll be sure to help her with that! She also has a family! So we´ll be doing our best with them! Still drinking the juice, still staying warm, still having a great time! We quote harry potter all the time in our apartment, and avatar the last airbender, so life’s going pretty good right about now!!! Love you all!!!

Love Elder Quinn!

"We are going to baptize everyone here in Oeiras!"

This last week has been pretty awesome! Just been working our tails off, you know... the usual. My new companion is Elder Yancey! He is from Seattle, Washington! Pretty cool. I am training him and he is already doing a great job! Already talking with people on the streets and testifying like he´s been here for a year already! We are here doing a white wash, which means we took over the area from other missionaries and basically have a clean slate. We have a couple references to work with, like numbers in the telephone, names in the area book and of course just talking with everyone on the streets about our awesome message! We live in a house with two other Elders. They are Elder Simpson from Texas, and Elder Ruggles.... from my old ward in Riverton Utah... #smallworld... once again! Ha-ha pretty cool getting to see people from home! Also, I got to see Elder Bianucci when we picked up our trainees! They all were sooo tired at the meeting because of jet lag and everything!
Elder Yancey and I were contacting our first night and we met a Brazilian girl. We arranged to meet with her Saturday morning at the chapel. We met, and we marked her there at the end of the lesson for baptism! It was a miracle! And awesome for Elder Yancey to see that miracles really happen here in the mission field and that if we open our mouths and talk, the Lord will do the rest!
So General conference was awesome! We got to watch it in English and hear great things from the Lord’s prophets and apostles! Elder Ruggles and Elder Yancey were still struggling with a little jet lag, so Elder Simpson and I would look over at our trainees and they were sleeping... poor guys! Ha-ha, I remember when that was me! They´ll be alright. Also, I met one of my brother’s missionary Zone Leaders that he served with in Paris, here in my ward....it’s a small small world!
So now I will continue to just keep working, putting my faith in the Lord, and following his teachings! We are going to baptize everyone here in Oeiras! Love you all! Thanks for everything!
Love Elder Quinn!

"The Queen of Costa"

So, here in this beautiful beach town of Costa da Caparica, I have picked up the name, the Queen of Costa, thanks to our recent convert Ernesto. He speaks English pretty well, so when he read my name, he thought it was the same as queen. (I get that a lot). We as a mission were working really hard to achieve a goal of 165 baptisms this transfer! We performed 3 fasts in total, as a mission and with the members here. The results were 151 baptisms!!! We had 56 baptisms this past week as a mission! The best week this mission has seen since 2012 when they had 51. It was a lot of fun to come together as a mission and work for this goal given to us from our president. Elder Durfee and I had another 2 baptisms this past week. A mom and a child, Patricia and Rafael. We are still working with the husband to get him to the waters of baptism. He said he´s known the Mormons for 20 years and never had anything to do with us, but now the Elders have become a blessing in his home. Pretty amazing the way The Lord works! Some fun things to update on.... Elder Durfee and I thought we had bought some onion rings so we took them home, were frying them, then eating them, and realized on the bag that they were octopus rings.... they were still delicious!! It rained cats and dogs a little this past week! So as we were walking to one of our appointments, somebody drove by and splashed me hard core!!! Ha-ha the people here just LOVE the Elders! Fortunately for Durfee, I was between him and the puddle. Also, we met a couple from Utah here just on the street. The Higgins family. He was wearing a U of U shirt. Boooo! So we hear them call, "Missionaries!", and we look over, and see them and go talk to them. While we are talking to them we found out they live in the Salt Lake area. He served his mission here 10 years ago and one of his areas was Costa. We keep talking, I tell them I´m from South Jordan, they say they are too, and we find out we are in the same stake!!! ha-ha it is such a small world! Towards the end of our conversation, I hear a Splat! and look, and his wife, (Sister Higgins) got pooped on by a seagull!!!! It splattered across her face and down her shirt!!! Hahaha, us 3 (Durfee, me and Brother Higgins) were dying laughing!!!! It was smearing her makeup... it was too good! So as some of you have probably heard, my birthday was this past week. Can you guess what I did? Yes, I went to McDonalds!!! #ofcourse! On the day of my birthday, Durfee made us french toast, we did weekly planning, went to Mcdonalds, went to our recent converts house for cake, then worked for the day, came home and made German Pancakes!! ha-ha, it was definitely a good day! I am no longer a teen. That’s very strange to me! Then Sister Fluckiger (Presidents wife) called and sang to me! We also went to a member’s house last night to have a Cod fish dish and some homemade pineapple cake! So.... We got the call last night for transfers.... are you ready?! Elder Quinn... you are being transferred to Oeiras! You will be the District Leader; you will be white washing, and YOU WILL BE TRAINING!!! I´m getting a greenie this week!!! His name is Elder Yansey. I´ll get to see two of my very good friends at the meeting when I go to get my trainee. Elder Biancucci and Elder Ruggles are from my Riverton ward. It’s going to be a transfer of lots of work and faith! (#prayforme #pls) ha-ha it’s going to be awesome! I already have the Leader of the work calling me and wanting to meet with me. I think it’s one of the biggest chapels in Portugal and has a huge ward! Sad to leave Costa, but excited for the new adventure! Love you all!! Thanks for everything!! Tudo bem aqui!
Love Elder Quinn

"....and the fight continues!"

Ola America!!! Tudo Bem?! This transfer has been one of miracles. Elder Durfee and I are having such a good time here in Costa. Wakin up, runnin on the beach, studyin the scriptures, then hittin the streets finding God´s Elects! So, some fun things I have done as a tourist missionary (on P-Days of course) with Elder Judd. We went to Lisbon, a praça do comercial, or something like that, and it was beautiful. All these old buildings, the architecture and everything. It is absolutely stunning here!! While there, we went to the hard rock cafe, and when we were entering, there was some members from Setúbal that I knew!! Ha-ha #thankyouheavenlyfather. They bought our hard rock cafe food and we had such a good time just sittin there enjoyin some American Chicken sandwiches and Oreo cheesecake after!! It was soo cool! The members were so surprised at how good everything tasted. They got a slab of ribs, and they told us, "You Elders have to try this!!" ha-ha so we told them, "This is our food everyday over there in America!" ha-ha, it was cool. Elder Durfee and I went to Cristo Rei, the big Jesus statue here in Lisbon - it's ginormous!! We went to the top and everything! Today we´re going to Belem and we are going to get some more pastels bread and cheese! We also tried some sugar cane juice!!! Also, we had a Zone Conference - Elder Fish and Brown (from my MTC district) are here in my zone!! So I got to see them and that was way awesome!! Elder Fish said I have gotten way tan....(Traci Day ain’t got me beat!) It’s just awesome having this different culture and different language every day! Definitely a different lifestyle, but it’s worth it! Yesterday.... WE HAD A BAPTISM!!! #blessed! His name is Ernesto! He was truly prepared by the Lord!!! We found him when we were knocking on doors! He let us in, we had the answers to his questions, and he was baptized! He had a stroke so he doesn’t have full function of his left side, so Elder Durfee and me baptized him!! #whiteparty! It was so neat, after he went in the water and came out, he sat there, was crying a little and hugged us both (he likes to speak English with us) and he said, "Thank you Brother." It was soooo awesome!! The Lord is the best! I am coming to know him so much more out here than I would have ever imagined!! Thank you for all your support and prayers! I love and pray for you all! The summer is coming to an end, so there are not as many people here at the beach. But the juice is still good, the Lord is my light, and the fight continues!

Love Elder Quinn

April 16, 2014! The day Dallis arrived in the Portugal, Lisbon Mission!!!!!

A zone Conference in Lisbon on May 30, 2014. Can you spot Dallis?