Second Week!

I can't believe it has only been two weeks! The weeks are just flying by!

Our district did this thing with one of our teachers where he was the investigator and the whole class taught him together. Our teacher named himself Bill.  Bill's wife had just recently died. My companion and I were the ones who started the group off with the teaching... it was super rocky our first try. It didn't get much better on the second try, but we learned that we can't just be robots and go through lessons. We have to be sympathetic and help them. It is so hard at times.  From that time on, any time we have a difficult moment, we call them "Bill moments." Anything that slaps us in the face spiritually is a Bill moment.

Other than our "Bill moments," and some other crazy things, most of my day is pretty fun! For exercise time we either play spikeball, bocce ball, basketball or four square. Most of the time I play four square!!  I have carried over the Mountain Ridge legacy. Not to brag or anything, but I am king a lot of the time .... haha. We made a new rule to make it  more competitive. When we get out we have to do push ups. 5 for the first square, 10 for the next, then 15 then 20 if you are king. So, I ended up doing around 160 push ups within an hour and I am so sore. I had one of the lowest amount of pushups .....some guy got up to 240ish!

The new mission presidents were here all week last week and I got to meet my new one. He is so cool! His wife is so loving and I can't wait to work with them the next two years! They lived in California the past 16 years. They got their call and they have to do what we did, but with the whole family. They packed up and move the whole family to a new place!! They are in the same boat as us missionaries, which is very reassuring.

The Quorum of the Twelve were here this past week. I only saw Elder Bednar in his car! They wouldn't let any missionary into the building while they were here, so we didn't  get to meet them. It was still cool knowing that we were in the same place as them though.

Well, next time I write to y'all is when I will be in Nashville! I can't believe how fast the time is going. I love all of your emails!!!  Thank you for writing! Your letters are keeping me going.  I wish I could email back to all of you but I just don't have enough time. I love you all and I pray for all the new missionaries coming out. The MTC is a awesome and hard experience. I have cried more in two weeks then I have in two years. I am sure it will just get worse .... haha! If you want me to respond to you, then send me a hand written letter. I can read letters and emails anytime during the week, but I can't respond until my p-day.

Love Elder Quiring

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Here is a note from Conner's companion, Elder Costa.  An experience he had with Conner this past week I thought I would share:

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Elder Quiring is an amazing spirit. He strives for perfection in everything he does. This is so great for our progression but some times he feels inadequate. It has been awesome to be able to be by his side as we learn together.

One night we had a teacher pretending to be a man he met on his mission, Bill. As a class we were supposed to teach him. Bill's wife had just passed away (what he felt was the only good part of his life) and his children were basically just waiting for him to die so they could have the house. The teacher left the room so we could prepare what to teach. We were getting hyper and went into the lesson with the wrong spirit. We didn't take it seriously at the beginning and realized we weren't saying the right things. This character struck Elder Quiring because one of his sisters had passed away when he was young. We had a second chance as a class after we messed it up and brought the spirit that was missing. Elder Quiring just wasn't feeling right. That lesson had struck us hard. Realizing we have to have the spirit with ourselves at all times for the sake of these people. These are real people. I feel like at the beginning of that lesson, with me not taking it as seriously as I should have, my empathy was gone. After our teacher left the room it was dead silent. Quiring was struck with the experience. A lot of these people in our zone have had some rough experiences with death. A few with their siblings. The spirit was so strong in that room. We told each other how important they were. I didn't say anything wrong but I didn't say what Billl needed to hear. I was not being sensitive to him or the spirit.  Me and Quiring talked alone for a while after that experience. I had to let him know how bad I felt about that whole thing. I told him how he was a brother to me. He really is. Some times after these humbling experiences I just feel like a chimp in a suit. Elder Quiring is such a straightforward, independent. extroverted, wise, and extroverted dude. What a gangster.

Where to begin?

Well .... everything you learned in seminary is great but it does not prepare you for the mission. Seminary helped me a lot with the knowledge, but actually teaching is a lot harder. You have to be able to take what you learn and make it applicable and easy for a child to understand. I also thought that testifying would bring people to Christ. It does, but I have learned you actually want your investigator to testify on their own and you use yours to back it up. They don't lie when they say that the mission is one of the hardest things to do in your life. Although it is hard, and I have learned a ton, I have also loved the MTC. I will try and answer all the questions I have received from emails the best I can.

First off, yes I am alive and well! I didn't think it took so much to make it this far, but it's awesome! The food here is pretty good.  I have always been more of a quantity over quality kind of guy so that is great. My companion is... well how can I do him justice... He just makes me cry with laughter at least once a day! He has been super awesome at supporting me when I feel down about myself. He has a great testimony, and like mine, it is growing. Him and I are the district clowns. We have a problem with getting the class off topic and laughing. We are trying to reign it in though. My district is the best! We have bonded so well. It's like a family! We help each other out with the material and we can make each other die with laughter. We just had a fresh batch of newbies. Even though we have been here a week, it has felt like a year. The motto for time around here is "days are like weeks and weeks are like days" ... it is so true! It has gone so fast yet so slow at the same time. We all want to go to Nashville so bad! There are six elders and one sister going to Nashville and three sisters are going to Las Vegas. There is an on going joke in our district, it is talking lazy. That is like saying each word but only the first syllable then the rest of the word fades out. It just makes us laugh so much!

A normal day at the MTC is wake up, study, teach, eat, study, teach, learn and go to bed. We study and plan for like 6 hours of the day. It's like going to school everyday. Then comes the stressful part... actually teaching real investigators. We are getting the hang of it, but it is still so hard. We want them just to say, "I believe and baptize me!" That is never the case. We have two investigators. One of our investigators is Talia. She is super religious already. She grew up in a catholic school but she believes what we are saying and is starting to read and pray about things herself! The other is Zach. He is a BYU student that wants to feel what he has learned at BYU. He knows everything about the church just believing it is the thing we are working with him. We have to keep in our mind our purpose and all we can do is invite and help them come unto the Lord. They have to take their own journey to God and Jesus Christ. It has really taught us to find their needs and find commitments to help them come closer. Missionary work is a lot of "what ifs?" It kills me because I want one answer ... HA!

I will email next week! Wish me luck! 

 

Elder Quiring​

First One

So, I only get like 10 min so here it goes....

The MTC has been an experience, haha!!  I have been here for 24 hours and it has felt like a week! I have never been so immersed in the gospel like I have today. I have learned that I can not do it on my own. I need The Lord to guide me and help me out for those I am teaching. 

 

My companion is Elder Acosta and he is super awesome! He grew up in Vegas and has the best faces. He is like me!! We are very brief when teaching a lesson so we are working on using the spirit more. My district is the best and room 127 is a family for sure. I wish I had more time to email but I love you all! 

 

Mom, I already broke my belt.... haha. That freshman 15 is hitting me hard. Also I left my pens and pencils at home so if you could send those that would be awesome. Again, I love you and I know The Lord loves you more than I do.

 

Love Elder Quiring

Saying Goodbye

Endowment

It was a pretty cool experience to take out my temple endowments.  The celestial room was beautiful!  Family support was awesome. 

Aunt Ang, Uncle Pat, and my friend Austin Peck and his dad were also with me!