Week 5

7/28/16

Hey all! This week has been good! We taught 5 lessons this week so far usually we teach about 7 by Thursday.. 4 of the lessons went really good! Then the last one we taught which was to our investigator Jorgen which is one of our teachers( Bro. Wright), the lesson went not so good we didn't teach to his need because what we thought what he needed obviously wasn't what he needed which was frustrating. My companion and I teach him again tomorrow, hopefully it goes better! 

We also teach relief society again on Sunday, we just taught like two weeks ago lol... Oh well more blessings right? 

While waiting for choir on Tuesday, all of us missionaries were packed in a hallway waiting for the doors to open and these two random elders decided to start a rap battle it was kinda funny haha. Neither were very good at rapping lol. We also got to sing with the Nashville Tribute Band for backup! It was weird since it was Christian music, but like, not MOTAB lol.. They have some really good songs! Some of the ones I really liked hearing were "Johns Song", "When the Son of Man", and "I was Born". 

The past two weeks or so I've been telling my companions how much I really want a taco bell taco, and I know God loves me!! Because on Tuesday we walk into the cafeteria for dinner, and on the sign it has TACOBELL! I was so excited! Its such a simple little thing, but God definitely watches out for our little wants and needs because its not like I needed tacobell, but he loved me enough to make a prayer come true lol. 

Its weird to think i'll be in Denmark in 10 days or so! I get my travel plans tomorrow which is awesome. Also this week my whole zone which consists of all the Swedish missionaries, the Finnish missionaries, the Norwegian missionaries, the Iceland missionary, and the Danish missionaries, we all go to go to a Finnish sisters' endowment session because she is from Lithuenia so she hadn't had the chance to get her endowments out. It was so awesome having like 50 of us there to support her :). 

This week has gone by so fast I swear just yesterday was Sunday.. Also this week I had to help my teacher get a splinter out of his hand... It was hard because I wasn't about to touch his hand because thats just weird as a missionary.... Its funny how someone asks you to help them and it gives you pause now that you have all these rules lolo. But I successfully extracted the splinter without breaking any mission rules! I I was proud of myself lol. 

One of my teachers gets married in about 3 weeks or so so were all very excited for him! Elder Jewkes is his name.

Danish is coming but again, its still coming slowly it feels like lol. Not anywhere else though would you be able to successfully communicate and understand a language in 5ish weeks haha. I know when I get to Denmark, I'll be starting from square one again though since I probably won't be able to understand anything, but hey its okay, because I know I can do it! lol 

Hope you all had a great week thanks for all the support! Stay safe!

--

Sister Kemiella Quinton

Denmark Copenhagen Mission

Provo Missionary Training Center

Week 4

7/21/16

So this week was been awesome! I've had a lot of weird experiences and its been hard with teaching investigators, but its also been good. Fi'rst off is the gift of tongues is so real! Im not saying like I feel it or understand it all the time because a lot of the time I still feel like a fish out of water and I don't understand lol. But there are times when I understand exactly what's going on. I decided to read in the danish book of mormon one day after a really good class, and I read 1 nephi chapter 3 which is talking about nephi and his brothers following the lords counsel and going back to Jerusalem.. I read the first 20 verses, and there was maybe 20 words throughout the whole thing that 

I didn't understand.... I was able to figure it out and I was like God defintiely loves me! I feel like the gift and tongues comes and goes, but it was definitely one of the ups! Considering that was at my 2 1/2 week mark, it was good! 

     Another story with the gift of tongues where it was an up for me, was when my companion and I taught an investigator "Peter"( my teacher Bro Casper)..  it was our first lesson with him and it went soooo well! Normally when I talk in danish, I speak at the pace of a snail because I can't seem to put my sentences together well. You think i'm exaggerating, i'm not lol, seriously im the slowest person in my class i'm positive... But anyways my companion is usually the one that leads the lesson most because she is absolutely amazing at danish and speaking it, but this lesson, I actually led the lesson and I didn't mean to, but I just felt like it worked and I just knew. I felt like the spririt was there, and it worked and he understood my personal experience, and understanding and what not it was great :) Granted, that hasn't happened since then but it still made me happy lol. 

Right now my companion and I are teaching 9 lessons a week if you include the 2 lessons that we teach to actual members of the church here who speak danish and we just give a spritiual thought and what not and get to know them ... 

OHHHH my goodness!!! Best part of my week this week was on sunday! SO the mission presidency decided to make something special for the new missioanries who had just come in the Wednesday before, so we all watched the Character of Christ together as the whole MTC( there are 2600 of us I believe)... For those of you who don't know what "Character Of Christ" is, its a talk that all new missioanries have the priviledge to watch and listen to that was given by David a Bednar several years ago.. Its aa phenomenal talk if you have the chance, go watch it! But anyways, so we are watching this 40 minute talk, and I see the mission president leave for a second and I'm like that's weird but maybe he just had to use the restroom... I never see him come back. At one point during the video Ii was thinking about how awesome it was for the missionaries to be able to witness this from Elder Bednar...  The video ends, they turn the lights on, then all the sudden a door opens and a man starts waving for us to stand up.. SO we stand up and IN WALKS DAVID A BEDNAR AND HIS WIFE!!!!! We are like nooo wayyyy!!!! Elder Bednar starts talking to us and is like my wife and I do this once maybe twice a year and we just come  and a Q&A sooo we talked with him for like 2 hours it was sooo awesome!!! 

Something my companion said this week talking about the MTC and mission life in general, is how the mission is like a slap in the face and a pat on the back at the same time ahah. It's so true you work so hard and you do terrible at things, you feel terrible then you do something amazing and you feel so awesome and learn so much and grow lol. But missioanries wouldn't do it if it wasn't worth it.. It's amazing that our church can send out 18 and 19 year old teenagers, to go preach the gospel.. How in the world does that work? lol no other church would send teenagers out to help others come unto Christ. We spend 1 1/2 to 2 years of our youth talking about God, and we convert people to the Lord, not because we are talented( were teenagerts),,,, but because we have a light that others seek in their lives and we bring a happiness they have never known!  The mission is hard and its not for everyone.. Just yesterday one of our 2 Noway sisters decided to go home because she wasnt emotionally ready for the mission and thats okay. She did her best, and once she's better, she can again try and come to serve the Lord. I'm in a trio now with the only Norway sister and my original companion, but the Lord knows each and every one of us and all he asks is that we do our best. Life is difficult, and we want to give up. But we do all we can because we know as servants of the Lord, we can do it through him. Hope you all have a great week!

--

Sister Kemiella Quinton

Denmark Copenhagen Mission

Provo Missionary Training Center

Week 3

7/14/16

Hey all! SO this week was been quite intersting and fun! I had the opportunity to "host" the new missionaries who came to the MTC yesterday and I ,only by the grace of God , got to host my best friend and roommate Riley(SIster Parker now)! It was so cool! Downside to yesterday, is at lunch I had grabbed this brownie thing and when I went to go eat it it was cold, so I was like thats weird.. I ate it anyways, and as I was eating it I hoping it didn't  have cheesecake in it(cheesecake has always upset my stomach for those who dont know). And sure enough an hour later I was feeling really sick, I stuck thorough hosting all the way though. Then I got to class, and I was still feeling  sick kinda to the point where I  thought I might throw up but I stayed strong! My companion and had to watch 2 lessons yesterday becuse we have 3 investigators that I believe we teach until we leave the MTC and the 3 investigators are our teachers lol.  My companion knew I was sick , I'd told her what happened, and so we go in the lesson, I literally say 2 sentences the entire time, I'm trying not to hurl , You could tell our teacher was super confused! But anyways so the investigator lesson went really well the Holy Ghost definittely was there to help her because she is a phenomenal teacher and I was like yeah,  maybe you should teach everytime! Haha,  several hours later, after dinner, we had to teach another investigator lesson to our other teacher, and I still wasn't feeling any better... I had taken some medicine  that I thought would work, and for like 5 minutes it did,  but then it didnt. So we go into the second lesson, and again she teaches the whole lesson except me saying two lines. This teacher could tell I wasn't feeling good and knew something was wrong but he didnt say anything about it , he was just cool about it. Then after the lesson is finished and he is our teacher again, we're in class, and he walks in, turns around and says "Sister Quinton are you feeling okay?"(he asked me in Danish) and I said "i'm ok so my companion,  the sweetheart she is, told him what happened and he was like do you need to go to your residence and lay  down? I told him I would be fine ... About an hour and a half I started to feel better so I think it mostly worked through my system and i was able to focus enough not to toss all my cookies haha.

I got to attend the temple today with my companion and our other 2 sisters it was awesome as usual :) I have to say my district is all pretty awesome haha. So many awesome memories and inside jokes that we laugh about for no reason because its funny ahha. Also this week, one of the sisters had not had her Visa personal appearance yet, so the MTC flew her down to Houston to get it. She had to be at the travel office on the mtc campus by 1:30 am, and so all 3 of us other sisters walked her down in our pjs and blankets because we didnt want her to walk there by herself! It was quite the adventure and we were giggling about everything haha. There were 7 elders who were headed to their missions which I believe was in Japan, and they were all looking at us all crazy ahha. Im trying to think of what else happened this week! So much happnes in each day since we have 16 hour days all the days kinda blend together and what not. I really need to start bringing my journal so i can see what i wrote .

I found out this week that apparently Russia has closed itself to proselyting! SO now everyone going to Russia and what not is basically a service mission. Its funny how much i didnt realize i had picked up of Russian considering i had only taken 2 semesters of it, until all the sudden in lessons and what not i need to find the danish word, and i cant think of the danish or english word all I can think of is the russian word... Just today my companion Sister Jex was like, I'm surpurised you still remember so much Russian! I was like O know I'm surprising myself! hahah . I'll try and send some photos I'm quickly running out of time but i think I'll  get the photos of my small 7 people district ahha. Its weird how fast time goes and how slowly it does at the same time! Its been like 2 weeks from yesterday that I've actually been here, but it feels like a lifetime! I'm almost halfway done in the MTC i leave in less than a month for Denmark! IM definitely not ready for it!

Hope you all have a great week and I thank you all who are sending me Dear Elder Letters I  really appreciate them and enjoy hearing from all of you! Have a great week! Or in Danish: Har en godt uge( close pronunciartion: har- en - goat- oo)! 

--

Sister Kemiella Quinton

Denmark Copenhagen Mission

Provo Missionary Training Center

Week 2

7/7/16

Hey all! This week has been fun and interesting haha. Lots went on I just don’t even know anymore haha. To start off my companion is Sister Jex, she is from Orem Utah! I actually saw her get her call on the sister missionary page on facebook I was on, before I left ,’so its fun we get to be companions lol.

I’ve had a good week!

Danish is difficult I will admit haha. We have been teaching lessons to an "investigator" in danish! We started our third day teaching him in danish his name is Matthias. He is actually our 3rd teacher even though we aren’t technically supposed to know that . Its sooo hard to understand him too! I understand some things but I also don’t understand a lot. I came to find out I have a really hard time finding my words and saying them in danish because the pronunciation is so hard. I find myself thinking of the word in russian actually and I can’t think of it in Danish !  I guess I knew a lot more of russian than I originally realized haha. Yesterday we taught Matthias for the fourth time and he had questions like “ I understand, that you have Joseph Smith and the priesthood and what not, but I don’t understand why….  Why do I need it? Why is it important?  It sounds easy to explain but when youre trying to do it in a foreign language, or even in english, its hard haha. We told him we would telll him today when we teach him again.. Not lookling forward to it. But hey we did sing for him in our lesson Joseph Smiths first prayer and he said it was really good so thats awesome! I don’t rememebr what I’ve told you or what I’ve written in my joural haha.

Our two teachers our Brother Wright and Brother Casper. Brother Wright served his mission in Denmark and he got back like 9 months ago or something? The Finnish sisters from our district say he looks like a calendar model lol.. SUPER awkward lol. And brother Casper served his mission in Iceland. I don’t know when he got back, but he speaks 4 languages and he’s learning a fifth. He speaks icelandic, danish, english, french, and learning german.

For the 4th of July, we didn’t do much it was a normal day until. about 8 pm and we got to go to a devotional thing and then we got to go watch the fireworks.. They told us we had to go back straight to our rooms when the fireworks ended even though they "said" there wasn’t a curfew lol... We actually forgot and were hanging out with our zone which consists of the Swedes, Nords, Finsks, and us Danes because the Swedes and Nords left for Norway and Sweden on Tuesday! All worked out though!

Anywho,  I can’t think of anything interesting really to say haha... I guess something interestingI learned was there is a phrase sometimes used, like if you completely spaced or forgot something, you can say "for katen" pronouced " for cat-en" which means "for the cat" lol. Anywhoo, hope you all have a good weeek!     Har en Goddag(have a good day!)!

--

Sister Kemiella Quinton

Denmark Copenhagen Mission

Provo Missionary Training Center

Week 1 MTC

On Jun 30, 2016, at 8:19 PM, Kemi Ella Quinton <kemi.quinton@myldsmail.net> wrote:

 Hey all! Finally got to email you two lol. I hope you're enjoying your empty nest now that we are finally all gone!
 I'm still alive though the Danish is hard haha. They have so many silent letters and letters that change what the sound is like k's that change to g, gs that change to l's in the middle of words, I don't even know . I had to give a prayer in danish today,. let me tell you it was completely awful haha. I'm sure i'll get better someday though! 
The MTC food is interesting.... Not my favorite I definitely like your cooking way better mom ;) Too bad food can't be mailed . 
The MTC definitley isn't what I thought it would be its kinda weird not gonna lie... apparently we can't listen to music in our residence halls... so basically no music at all until I get to Denmark! I'll live.
 I saw my paper today and it looks like my release date is December 26 2017... SOOooo right at christmas time  Happy Christmas to me!
 My p-day is thursday, so I won't be able to email until next Thursday... Is today thursday? or friday? I can't remember lol.
 I slept like an angel on my bed last night since I had been up for 38 hours straight haha. I nodded off several times.
If you guys want to use dearelder.com I don't know if you need to know my district number but it is 13-B if you need it.
 I'm blanking on what else has happened its been a weird 2 days ahha. Anyways, I love you both and I hope that you guys have had a good two days! Talk to you next Thursday! Love you!

-
 Sister Kemiella Quinton
 Denmark Copenhagen Mission
 Provo Missionary Training Center

             Last FROYO Date  with mom and dad after being set apart as a missionary 6/28/16

                                                       last airport hugs 3:30 AM  6/29/16

              Last hugs after finding out her sister Karalee and husband Quentin are having a girl!!

                                                                       airport......