"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?

"It's seriously felt like a blink!"

Dallis is doing Great! He hasn't written an entry for his blog in the past two weeks but he has written us, his family, so I thought I would share some of his thoughts from his letters to us......


Haha, so Elder Judd and me were talking about slip and slides and I had to tell him about when you ran out and jumped feet first onto a downward slope and slammed your hair clip into the ground, ripping the slip and slide and cracking your skull! hahahahaha oh I'm dying just thinking about it!! I miss you guys too! Things are still going great here! Lots of new people to meet and talk to! Lots of things to still learn! But I feel I´ve come a long way! So that's such a blessing!! We don't have that long and we´ll be on the phone again hearing each other´s laughs and cries!

The language is still going... I can basically understand what's going on in every conversation. There are just some accents I cannot understand at all... haha but one day I´ll get there I guess! I cant believe it's already been 5 months!
 It´s seriously felt like a blink!

Man I miss hangin with my family!!! But Fortunately thanks to the Lords grace, I am adjusting every week, and I am ok with having to wait a little before hangin out with you guys again.

Guess what memory made me laugh this past week? I was thinking of us on the wave runner when you couldn't handle yourself!!! hahaha made me laugh!!! haha and the library one made me laugh too!!! Don't worry, I am doing my best to be obedient. I want those blessings! haha here's my quote for you,
"Don´t help you´re pregnant!"
LOVE YOU!!!
Elder Quinn