Lando - Far From Home: April 2022

Hey everyone!

The keyboard I am typing on is trash so just a heads up if there are any misspellings or errors haha

I've now been at the MTC for a whole week now and I've already learned so much. The MTC definitely has a special spirit here and I can definitely feel it. It's crazy that only being here a week has made me into a better person and a better disciple of Christ. I love my district and my classes. My district is full of people with personalities just like mine. By saying that you can tell how much energy we have around campus and in class. The elders in our district (including me) are known because we actually include our sister missionaries and include everyone. We have already taken a lot of sisters under our wing because their elders in their district only hang out with each other. All day we talk to people throughout campus and sing songs and people join in with us. It's gotten to the point that we recognize almost everyone on campus now. It is very fun here but I am also ready to get to the field. On Tuesday, we had a devotional and an apostle spoke. The apostle was Elder Stevenson! He spoke about having a missionary "survival kit" which includes your Book of Mormon, Preach my Gospel, and Standards.If you have these and a steadfast testimony, then you will survive your mission.

A cool thing about class that happened this week was that we did a practice teaching lesson and we taught a random teacher in the MTC. My companion and I taught Lesson 3 with an emphasis on repentance and escaping consequences of our sins because that is what the teacher was roleplaying as. During the lesson, he was taking notes and evaluating us on things that we did well and what we could do better. After the lesson, he said "Don't tell anyone this, but that was probably one of the best practice lessons I've seen in a while." That definitely was a confidence boost for me and my companion. Everything else about class is really fun too. The 3 hours go by so quickly and we stay busy all day. It really is true that you don't have time to be sad, bored, or homesick because you are busy all day. I was worried about learning the lessons but I am catching on pretty easily. It is best to realize that you can't ever say anything wrong as long as you aren't spreading false doctrine and are led by the Spirit.

I've been playing basketball and volleyball in the morning at the gym right when I wake up at 6:40 because that is when most people go. It has been so fun. People are calling me Elder Drain-O because I make so many threes in a row during a game and can't miss hahaha. There was even a 6'8" guy who was playing and he was pretty good and we dropped him off the court. Volleyball is fun too. I am just pretty good at everything sports related because I'm a tryhard haha.

I started a ping pong tournament with my district. We have a 10 people double elimination bracket tournament going throughout the week. It is so much fun. Some of the sisters hadn't played ping pong before and now they love it. I told them I love making tournaments and they said they could tell haha

Also we made up a language called Raganese during class because we got bored. Its named after our district leader and he created the Raganese alphabet. I've gotten really into translated English words into Raganese and I've attached a picture of our new language lol See if you can't figure out some of the words

I got to go to the temple again today and that was very nice. We went with the district as well as a couple of the sisters we have taken under our wing. The temple is truly the House of God and the covenants we make there are true and powerful. Each time I go, I grow to love it more. I now can relate to the song "I Love to See the Temple" haha I think it would be cool to try to do an endowment session in every temple in the US. Kind of like a bucket list. Anyways the temple is such a good place.

I love you all so much and am loving it here. I hope everything is going well back in Nac. I can't wait to write about all the experiences I have once I get to Reno and start real missionary work. I arrived in Reno on Tuesday!!! I can't wait! There are some pictures for yall as well.

Elder Proctor

Pic 1- District temple day

Pic 2 and 3- Raganese language

Pic 5- We were free the rest of the night and hung out in the rec room with a lot of missionaries. We played Jenga and we got it to be the tallest I've ever seen. We got it to be double the size

District at the Provo Temple

Raganese

View from MTC

More Raganese

Provo Temple

Hey everyone!!

Sorry for the late email but I'm at the MTC now. I'm so glad to actually be here now and and ready to get in the field. I was the very last missionary to arrive to the MTC. What a surprise. If you know me it isn't haha.

Last night we did a devotional called the character of Christ and it was really cool. There were two guest speakers and their life story was so cool the listen to.

Today was P-Day and my district was able to go to the temple. The temple was such a good time. What was cool is a girl from BYUI that I knew is at the MTC and she was in the session with me!! That was cool.

I was able to play some volleyball during gym time and that was fun. I'm already making some connections here.

One funny thing that has happened is a MTC story I heard. So apparently there was an elder that was excommunicated because he ordained a cat they found on the campus. They said they could see the elder getting escorted out of the MTC with all his stuff. I don't know how true that story is but it is still funny to think about.

One last thing is that before bed one of the branch presidency members came and talked to us. He helps design and test roller coasters so I was very intrigued. All my roommates were freaking out when I started holding a conversation with him on all the roller coaster companies and stuff because I love that stuff. I was naming off all these different coasters and he was saying he helped test them. That was so cool.

I've only been here for 24 hours and haven't been to a class yet so not many experiences to share. I do have a talk on Sunday though! I'll tell you about it next week.

I love yall so much!!!!

Elder Proctor