Winnemucca Week 13 (Mission Week 34)

Hey guys!!

Well this week was quite eventful. Probably the weirdest/non routine week I've had on the mission so far. It included Thanksgiving and a trip to the ER. Ill explain why in the Weekly Recap. I'm glad this week is upon us so we can get back to our regular schedule. 

Monday

Regular pdays things. The youth are out of school so a couple of them came to the church and played basketball with us.

Tuesday (Trip to the Emergency Room)

The day started out normal. We did service raking leaves with another set of Elders and then got lunch with them afterwards. When we walked out of the restaurant, my right eye's peripheral vision went out. It was weird. While I was driving, I couldnt see the cars on the right shoulder of the road. When we got back to the apartment my vision was still weird but I got dressed for the rest of the day. We started our companion study like normal. We recite 3 things at the beginning of every study (Our purpose, the First Vision, and the mission scripture). I've been out for nearly 8 months now so I have these things down. Today was different. As I was trying to recite, I couldn't get the words out. I knew what I had to say but I couldn't get my mouth to say it. I tried each recitation but it was the same for each one. My speech was slurring and my words were jumbling together. There was a point where my companion was telling me to say it but I literally just looked at the ground and stayed silent and shook my head because I couldn't. The zoneleaders were at our apartment by this point and they were asking me questions and a couple of the things I couldn't remember the answer.This lasted for 10-12 minutes which was concerning so we called the mission doctor and she told us to go to the ER immediately. She feared that I had a stroke. So we drove to the ER and spent the remainder of the day there. I had blood drawn, a CT scan, urine tests, and every other tests you can have. I was there for a long time and fortunately everything came out OK. The doctor was telling me the best idea would probably go home and get treatment and then come back on the mission. I was like that isn't how the mission works Ms. Doctor haha. We talked with President Dunn a couple of times and the situation gradually lessened to where now I'll just be driving to Reno a couple of times this transfer to see a neurologist. I either had a mild stroke (TIA) or just a massive brain fart haha. Hoping for the massive brain fart. Because of the whole situation my driving privileges got taken away. They don't want me having a stroke while driving which is a good idea. The whole ordeal took a toll on my system. I went to bed at 9pm and didn't wake up until 12:30pm the next day. 16 hours of sleep was great haha. Just pray for me that no lasting affects will be found when I see the neurologist. Interesting day

Wednesday

Half of the day was taken with me sleeping. We had to cancel some things because of my fatigue. We did have an early Thanksgiving dinner which was a pleasant surprise!

Thursday (Thanksgiving)

My body was pretty much back to normal by now which was nice because of the holiday. We had a full day planned. We had 4 dinners to go to and a lot of Thanksgiving messages to share. The elders in Winnemucca had a competition as to see who would gain the most weight. I gained 10.4 pounds. I will never do that again though. It was not worth it. By the end of the day we were all sick of food and couldn't move haha. I lost half of the weight by midnight because the food did not stay in my stomach if you know what I mean . Anyways my first Thanksgiving on the mission was great.

Friday

The day was spent contacting and we had a lesson with Gary. We were in the deep part of our area where there is no service so that was fun haha. It's called Grass Valley and that's literally what it is. Nothing around but grass and mountains with the occasional house. We had an interesting dinner as well. The couple are great people but are a bit odd haha.

Saturday

We did more service at the same place we did Tuesday. I was hoping to not have another "stroke" again since that's what happened last time we were there lol. I was fine though haha. We conducted our weekly planning and then had an awesome dinner.

Sunday

Regular church meetings. We had another lesson with Gary as well. Most of the day was spent contacting but in the evening we went and did family history with Brother Smith (an old guy in our ward). It was really fun. He said he usually goes and if no one shows up he packs up and leaves. We we there for an hour though just looking at stuff on Family Search in the Family History center. 

Lesson Reviews

Gary

Unfortunately Gary's baptismal date has been pushed back to the 10th. He drinks tea but he threw it all away and pledged to not drink it ever again because he wants to be baptized. You have to follow the Word of Wisdom for 2 weeks before being baptized which is why it got pushed back a week. He continues to impress us. We taught the Law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, and the Law of Tithing. We talked about how these commandments are in place out of the love our Heavenly Father has for us and we obey because we love and trust Him. We were worried about tithing but he went and got some donation slips that he does for other things and said he will pay tithing! He states every lesson that he feels the "warm feeling" that we spoke about which is the Holy Ghost. We love Gary.

Well that's what happened this week. Hopefully this week will be more normal and I won't have another potential stroke haha. I love yall!!! Thanks for all the prayer and thought coming my way! Also its Christmas time!!!!!! So excited!

Elder Proctor

Pic 1: 

Pic 2: my obituary that the Elders we did service with made before they realized that I seriously could be going home haha (I was born in 2002 not 01 lol)

Winnemucca Week 12 (Mission Week 33)

Hey everyone!!

Well another transfer has passed. We received our transfer news on Sunday night. I will be finishing Elder Burtons training in Winnemucca. This will be my 3rd transfer here. As for this past week, it was great. We have had a lot of progress. We found a couple of people and we set someone on date to be baptized. Here is the weekly recap.

Monday

Pday and we had a lesson with Layne and ate dinner with his family

Tuesday

We helped a nonmember move a very heavy commercial oven with 2 youth. It was pretty hard haha. Elder and Burton and I drove up the mountain for our comp Study which was fun and took some pictures. The rest of the day was spent contacting people

Wednesday

We did service for the Jones family. We also helped someone move. The wife and husband got into a big argument while we were there which made it a bit awkward haha. We read 1 Nephi 9 and 10 with Stacy and Tracy. We tried to contact some of our investigators. We ended off the day going to mutual.

Thursday

We did service for Sister Hall. She fed us lunch afterwards. We had our weekly planning session that took the chunk of our day. We checked up on some members and then finished the day with basketball. We had a good turnout which made it pretty fun. 

Friday

We helped out out the FCAA where they put boxes of food together and give it out to people. We handed the boxes out in the drive thru for a while and I loved it. I could've done it for the whole day. We had an incredible lesson with Gary Clark. We ended the day with playing chair soccer with a less active/non member family.

Saturday

The Southwicks fed us breakfast and then we helped them paint their fence. We attended the other Elders baptism. The rest of the day was spent contacting and finding. We were able to get Jordan some more food and we gave him a white shirt to wear to church.

Sunday

Very good Sunday! Gary came to church as well as Jordan. He even brought his little son. We were so happy. We were waiting outside for Gary and he showed up at 10:02. After church we had another lesson with him. We went to Elder Gutierrez farewell party the Spanish group put on because he is going home this week. We also contacted a couple of people

Lesson Reviews

Gary Clark

This man is GOLDEN. Withing 1 week of meeting him he is already on date to be baptized. Plus his baptismal date is on December 3! Crazy. Within 3 weeks of meeting he might be baptized. Our lesson went amazing. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we asked him if he had been baptized and he said yes so we went into how we need to be baptized by someone with the proper authority and he soaked it all up. I felt the Spirit very strongly telling me to extend the invitation to be baptized and he said yes. He literally agreed with everything we said and I though it was too good to be true. My faith was lacking that he was actually going to be baptized because of how well it went but then he came to church! He even brought his Book of Mormon that we gave him. Also it turns out that his boss his Brother Betteridge (a high councilor in our ward) and he had been to church before and has even cleaned the temple foyer! We had another lesson on the Restoration after church with Brother Betteridge and that went very well as well. Gary said that he felt the Spirit and knows it is true! The next two weeks are gonna be very busy if he is gonna be baptized on December 3.

Well that's about it for this week. Please pray that it will continue to work out for Gary to be baptized on December 3. Thank you for all the prayers coming my way. I love yall!!!

Have a great week

Elder Proctor

Winnemucca Week 11 (Mission Week 32)

Hey everyone!

This week was pretty good. Weeks are just going by so fast. One of our investigators dropped us which isn't fun but oh well.. It's gotten cold as well. Our highs are as cold as the Texas lows. Here's what happened this week

Monday

Regular pday things as always. We had a lesson with Layne in the evening and ate dinner with his family beforehand.

Tuesday

We had district council and went to lunch together. We saw one of our friends, Jim Loveless, at our lunch which was fun. We did a lot of walking and finding this day. It was very cold and rainy/snowy. We had some funny interactions as well with people who didn't want to hear our message haha. We also had a good visit with a less active guy and his non member wife.

Wednesday

We cleaned out our pantry because Jordan(non active guy struggling) Needs food so we organized a bunch of food and we took it to him. He was very appreciative. We talked with Jaxon for a bit because we hadn't seen him for a while. We had a fun lesson with Stacy and Tracy about the Tree of Life vision in 1 Nephi 8. We also went to mutual and played chair soccer with the youth! It also snowed which made me excited because I'm used to Texas and snowing is a big time event haha

Thursday

We went over to the Southwicks and helped them clean out their garage and truck. They fed us lunch as well. We conducted our weekly planning session. We ended off the day with basketball

Friday

We had service where we dug a big hole to replace a hydrant. It was pretty annoying when we found out that we dug the wrong way so we had to dig the opposite way when we couldn't find the pipe. We also did some tracting and we took one of the youth with us who is awaiting his mission call. It was fun but cold  We also had another great lesson with Jim!!

Saturday

I went on exchanges with Elder Webb again. We helped the Lewis family concrete fence posts in the ground and they fed us lunch. We walked a bit then stopped by a wedding reception at the church and met some people there. We went to a food storage thing and then did a lot of tracting in the evening. Cold once again haha.

Sunday

Elder Burton and I gave talks at church! The 2 youth speaker dipped out so we had the whole time to fill. I surprisingly filled the whole time. Who knew that going on a mission would increase your speaking skills haha. We watched the church broadcast with President Nelson and Elder Ballard for Nevada. We watched it at the Southwicks. It was very good. President Nelson said we are in the latter days of the latter days. This is true.

Lesson Reviews

Jim Loveless

We went without having anything planned but he had some questions which naturally took us into talking about the Plan of Salvation. He found much of the stuff pretty cool and we had scriptures from the Bible to back it up. He said he would be coming to church if no one got arrested over the weekend but unfortunately someone did so he had to hear their case on Sunday and couldn't make it to church.

Layne

His mom is very active but his dad and brothers are less active. He wants to be baptized though so we are going through the lessons with him. We taught the Restoration using Solo Cups.

A cool thing that happened this week was that when we went over to Jordan's house to give him the food he was trying to light the furnace to heat his house. A thing about Jordan is that his house is very rundown and his life is flat out terrible right now due to his own choices. We were trying to help him and we offered to say a prayer and he stormed off saying its not gonna work because he's been trying for 20 minutes and went back inside. We went inside for a little bit and gave him the food and before we left we said a prayer. In the prayer I asked Heavenly Father to help Jordan light his furnace. We got a text 30 minutes later from Jordan saying how much he appreciated us and that was was able to get his furnace lit and his house warmed up!!!! Prayer works!! This was a very good thing for Jordan and hopefully he understands that Heavenly Father is always looking out for him.

Well thats about it for this last week. This week is the last week of the transfer so I'm looking forward to seeing what it brings. Thansk yall so much for prayers and I love yall so much!!!

Have a great week!

Elder Proctor

Pic 1: Nevada Sunset

Pic 2: The food basket we prepared for Jordan

Pic 3: A Texas Snowman (because of the dirt haha)

Winnemucca Week 10 (Mission Week 31)

Hey guys this email is gonna be a bit shorter haha. I gotta get out of the bad habit of delaying writing these things so I can fully wrote one out that has meaning lol

This week was pretty good. We have found a couple of people and have grown our teaching pool. We are using basketball as a finding tool and it's working. We know of two people now that play with one of our youth at the high school. 

Weekly Recap

Monday

Regular Pday things

Tuesday

District council, did a lot of walking, and had a meeting with our ward mission leader

Wednesday

We had a lesson that fell through, did some more walking, went to a 7th grade basketball game, and went to mutual and played games with the youth!

Thursday

We did some walking in the morning then had a our weekly planning session. We played basketball in the evening and everyone that was there were people that the missionaries invited so that was nice.

Friday

We helped our bishop mount a new TV on the wall and sign them in to all of their streaming services. They are older and don't know how to use technology hahaha.. We also had an impromptu lesson with a lady named Susan. We went over to do service but she had us do one thing and then asked for a lesson so we gave her one haha

Saturday

I went on exchanges with the Zone leader. We attended a baptism for a kid in the ward. We were out walking in the cold rain as well.

Sunday

Church meetings and we drove the the further part of Grass Valley and spent our time there contacting people there

We had a couple of lessons that fell through this week but we are hoping that we are able to catch them all this week. I'm gonna just list the names of the people we are trying to teach/in the process of teaching and if you could keep them in your prayers that would be great.

Teaching Pool

Jim

Shalee

Mario

Voni

Jaxon

Brenton

Robert

Crystal

Jordan

Susan

Rachel

Mike

Well that's about it from me this week. As I said at the beginning, next week's email will have more haha

I love all of y'all so much! Have a great week!

Winnemucca Week 9 (Mission Week 30)

 Happy Halloween everyone  I hope yalls week was good. I know mine was. We found a couple of people and had some successful days tracting. I'll go straight into the weekly recap!

Monday

Regular p day things. Nothing much to report

Tuesday

Our service for the day didn't take very long so we went to a less active member home home asked if she wanted so help for an hour and she said yes! We also did a lot of contacting this day and walking around trying to find people. We found someone very promising named Rachel.

Wednesday

I was on an exchange with Elder Webb. We helped paint a deck, did some walking, and probably had the most interesting contact of my mission so far. The guy had a business card for all of his socials where he makes Cats the Musical edits. He also disagrees with many of the church's beliefs (he's a non active member). I was struggling not to crack up while we were talking to him because of how confused I was at what was happening haha

Thursday

We drove to Elko for Zone Conference!! It was fun. It was focused on prayers. I can testify that having meaningful prayers as well as calling upon the Lord for everything will increase your relationship with Him. We listened to some podcasts/devotionals on the way over there that were really good. If any of yall have a favorite church devotional/podcast please send it over. We also played basketball when we got back to Winnemucca.

Friday

We did ALOT of walking and finding. We made some invitations for our Trunk or Treat and handed them out to people. We had a couple of potential finds that we had a good meaningful conversation with but didn't get a return appointment. It was pretty fun making the invitations and passing then out to people while walking.

Saturday

We had some more good contacts but also had a bad one. I had my first bash of the mission. Yay haha. She pretty much told us that we were the spawn of Satan no biggie. We had the Trunk or Treat that night which was very fun. We invited Jordan (less active member who is struggling big time) and he came and even brought his 1 year old son. Please pray for Jordan. He really needs it. I also passed out hot chocolate from our trunk so it was fun interacting with all the ward. We also had interviews with President Dunn. 

Sunday

It was the primary program and church and we had a potluck. So fun! My favorite part was when one of the kids were listing the 10 commandments and why we obey them and got to the "Thou shalt not kill" and straight up just said "that is murder" and moved on  We were also able to coordinate getting Jordan some dinner which brought a lot of joy. 

Lesson Reviews

Rachel (new find!)

We knocked on her door and she said that she would be interested in our message. She said she doesn't know who created the world but believes in something. We taught some of the Plan of Salvation and testified that Jesus Christ created the world under Heavenly Father's direction. We testified of the Atonement and how we were sent here knowing we would make mistakes and we can use the Savior to overcome that. She stated that she wants to get her daughter baptized (she's 4) and she is looking for somewhere to go. We said that we have different lessons we can talk about and she said she has questions about them all. We talk a little about the Restoration. We also talked about how Christ is our main focal point of our beliefs. We gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and we will go back and answer any questions.

We actually had alot of really good first contacts/messages with people but didn't get return appointments so we cant consider them a find. It's always good to plant the seeds though and bear testimony so that whenever they think of missionaries they have a good experience to look back on. This upcoming week should be fun. We've got a couple of first lessons with some newfound people so I'm looking forward for that. Please keep praying for me as I'm out here serving. Thank you so much. I love yall so much!!!

Have a great week

Elder Proctor

Pic 1: Sister Kenisons AMAZING Thai food

Pic 2: Winnemucca Zone at Zone Conference 

Pics 3/4: The Business Card haha (Yall should look up the videos and tell me how they are)

Pics 5-7: My homemade invitations lol