Quincy - Week 47
Hey everyone !!
Well this week has definitely been an eventful and different week. We got BLASTED with snow. I've never seen so much snow in my life. It has snowed 5 days straight and now we are going through a blizzard on top of what we already had. Anyways here's how my week went. Sorry this is a longer email haha.
Monday
The Portola elders came up for P day and we played games with them in the morning. We played a round of disc golf with Brother Dolezal in the afternoon. We played basketball as well that was really fun. Its funny because we had 14 people there already but one of the people invited a bunch of other people so randomly 8 more people popped in and it was crowded. They wrote their names on the board but they decided to leave because of how many people there were which I was very happy about. Trying to maintain 22 people would've been very hard haha. The rest of the day consisted of normal P day things.
Tuesday
We had district council and a district lunch afterwards. We had a good discussion on the Saviors Sermon on the Mount. It started snowing pretty bad while we were driving home (which is up and down mountains and such) so we decided to turn around and drive back to Susanville. Elder Salinas took over driving because he is from NYC and has a lot of experience driving in snow unlike Mr. Texas Boy. When we got back to Susanville we talked to our district leader for a bit and then we decided we would try it again because the traffic cams looked OK. This time as we drove home the snow seemingly vanished. I'm glad that we turned around and didn't take the chance in the snow. #promptingfulfilled haha. We stopped in Greenville on the way home and did some work there. We talked to Brittany for a bit and then knocked some doors. We had a good conversation with a 7th Day Adventist lady on the doorstep and we will check up on her when we are in the area again. On the way back down to Quincy we had to drive slow because it was dark and icy. All in all we spent most of the day dealing with the snow and driving conditions
Wednesday
We did all of our studies in the morning and then helped Sister Peay with some yard work after lunch. We had a really long talk with Ray that took up most of the afternoon. After our discussion with Ray we had a "lesson" with Chad. I call it a "lesson" because he was very drunk and everything was going straight over his head. So he said where are my glasses, got up to find them, forgot what he was doing, sat down, and then immediately said where are my glasses AGAIN. Another thing that happened is that he was saying that he couldn't see because he didn't drink his vegetables as a kid. Another thing is that you will be reading a scripture and when you look at him he will be staring straight into your soul. Chad is always an interesting discussion but is always centered on Jesus Christ which Im happy about. We are going to go back with one of the youth who is about to go on a mission so he gets a funny outlook on missionary life haha. After dinner we went over to Larrys place and did family history for the evening.
Thursday
It snowed ALL DAY! Holy cow it reminded me of the Texas winter storm in 2021. There wasnt a time in the day that it wasn't a blizzard. We woke up and did our studies and then got all of our warm clothes and gear on then started shoveling snow around Quincy. We walked all around Quincy for 4 hours. We made a brief stop at Larrys house and talked with him while we were out. What's funny and kind of annoying is that all the work we did got replaced with even more snow. Oh well. Its the thought that counts. After we got home my companion and I both took a nap haha. We usually don't do that but we were DRAINED after 4 hours in the snow. We conducted our weekly planning session and then we went to basketball. I was worried that because of all the snow that not as many people would show up but we had 13 people still come. Weve got something really good going on because one of our ward members have said that some people have reached out to her and have told her that they love coming on Thursday nights. Its nice to see that we are created a good image for the church and making it more relatable so when people want to ask questions they will feel more comfortable doing so. I did some quick math and about 90% of people playing are nonmembers. I have list of people who have came since we've started (missing a few) and it's 27! 3 are members haha.
Friday
Oh. My. Gosh. I've never in my life had to go through this much snow. It snowed hard all night into the morning and didn't stop all day. I thought Thursday was bad but this was another level. Every 5 minutes I was at the window amazed at how it was still snowing. We got about at least 2.5 feet of snow. In the morning Elder Salinas and I walked downtown in the snow to eat at at restaurant called Morning Thunder. Once we got back from that we had an over the phone Bible Study with Sidney. After our study, we got back on the grind with shoveling. A couple of people had called us asking for help so we were booked until dinner. We dug someone's car out and made it possible for them to get out of their rv. Then we headed over to this random lady who called us asking for help and it turns out we were shoveling for a couple of her tenants as well as herself. We shoveled out a path from the highway to her house which was about 100 feet away as well as making little paths to that main path where the cars were. All I can say is that was some work haha. I had a total of 7 layers on the top, 6 layers on the bottom, 2 pairs of socks, a cloth mask, and a headband to keep me warm through the day. After all of our shoveling duties for the day we headed over to the Dolezals house for dinner and to recover from a hard day of cold work haha. We ended up playing some games with them and their sons friends that were spending the night. All in all the one thing I have gained from today is a confirmation of my desire to raise a family in Texas where it doesn't snow like this haha
Saturday
In the morning we ate breakfast with the Dolezals. We then went out with some ward members and helped shovel out driveways as well as the church. That was pretty fun serving alongside the ward members. I have always liked whenever things out of the ordinary happens like this which causes us to work together to serve. The rest of he day consisted of even more shoveling snow. It is the only thing we have done for 3 days straight haha. While we were shoveling Terry and Vickis house, a couple of the guys that come to Thursday night basketball rolled down their window and shouted "Hey Proctor!!!" Thats nice to know that we have left at least a good impact that they want to say hi. They also were able to see our example of service. Bill called us and gave us a referral to go shovel one of his friends driveway which we did. A cool thing that happened was that as we were walking with our shovels a guy rolled down his car window and asked if we were the missionaries. We said yes and he said that he is a college student at FRC and that his family is big into the church and he is from Utah. He asked where the church building was and said he will start coming! Hopefully that leads to somewhere. In the evening we had correlation meeting with Carlos. We actually got pulled over by the police on the way home because Elder Salinas didn't put the car headlights on haha. We took a picture with the cops lol
Sunday
The snow came back after a day off. I saw many blessings of obedience this day that I will explain later on. We had church in the morning. We attended Quincy Ward because we didn't feel comfortable driving to Greenville. We had a ward potluck after and I made some devils food cake for it. After church the snow was coming down pretty hard but we decided to still go out and work. We had such a good day. We had a referral a couple weeks back named Michael but she hadn't responded to any of our calls or texts so we went to her apartment and knocked the door. She answered and she had originally said that she was studying with someone else now but by the end we had set a return appointment with her for Saturday for a discussion on prayer! We then contacted a lady named Rianna that we had never met but had records for and we got straight to the point and asked if she wanted to take the lessons and she said sure and we set an appointment with her. There's a guy named Mike that I had never met but have tried to get into contact with for an entire transfer and we finally met him! He has been on date for baptism but because of legal trouble it didn't happen. We set an appointment with him for Wednesday. We had 2 other contacts that went well. We got out of dinner around 7:30 and we had every excuse to call it a night from it being dark, cold, snowing, and late but we kept going and oh boy am I glad we did. We found 2 people in a row after 8pm! We knocked this lady named Rose and no one answered so we walked away to our truck a couple houses down. As we were walking a truck drove passed us and pulled into Rose's house. Immediately I was thinking "Ok God what does that mean. What do you want us to do" haha. We waited a minute and then walked right back and tried again and she answered on the first knock. It wasn't Rose but a new homeowner! She invited us in and said she has family that are members and asked us if we had a pamphlet that she could read. We gave her the options and she wants to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a return appointment with her on Wednesday. Thats Gods hand in our work. We could've easily just drove away even though we saw a truck go into the driveway but we chose to follow what God wanted and it turned out great. We went back in the truck and were going to head home because it was 8:25 but we had a feeling to stay out for a little longer and try one more person we had planned for. We go over and she didn't answer but as we are walking back to our car we passed a couple of houses and one of them stuck out to me but I ignored it at first and kept walking and I cant really explain exactly the feeling I felt but it was as if something was pulling me back and I had an intense need to knock the house. I get 4 houses down and then I do an about face and say to my comp "we're going back" and we go knock the house that stuck out. Keep in mind it is 8:40 by now. An old lady named Joy answered and she has some religious background and she knows a few members of the church. We talked with her for brief moment and we asked if we could come back and talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she said yes! We gave her a pamphlet and will go back on Friday. Now right there is a blessing of obedience. We easily could've just went home early and sat around but instead we chose to go out and work even in the cold snow and look what happened. It has definitely given me a boost of motivation because I KNOW that that was the Spirit directing me. I call these "Hand of God" moments where things line up to good too be coincidences and the work of man. This is Gods work and we are His instruments.
Lesson Reviews
Chad
We read Alma 7: 1-13 and talked about what Christ did for us and the nature of the Godhead. Chad was quite drunk so everything flew over his head most likely. He says that he's a sinner and prays to Jehovah everyday. He says he loves talking about Jesus Christ and wants us to come back and talk more. We will talk about what happens after we die next time we see him.
Sidney
We read Acts 4 and 5. Pretty much all we did because of how little time we had.
Michael
We introduced ourselves and shared Alma 37: 36-37. We set up a return appointment for Saturday at 3. We will have Sister Martinez tag along for that because Michael said she knows her.
Brittany
We originally were there for Rose but she said that Rose has moved. She invited us in to talk. She has family members that are members of the Church. She asked for a pamphlet to read and she asked specifically for the one about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We gave a brief overview and set up a return appointment for Wednesday evening!
Joy
We introduced ourselves and got to know her religious background. She knows a few members of the church and said she would be ok with us coming back to discuss the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We gave her a GOJC pamphlet and a brief overview of it!
That's it for this week! Here's to another week of more snow. It's not stopping until later this week. We have a lot of lessons this week so hopefully the snow doesn't impact it so much. We have much more shoveling ahead of us. I love you guys!!
Have a great week!
Elder Proctor
.JPG)
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