Dayton Week 1 (Mission Week 64)

 WARNING: Long Email 

This email is about to be pretty long. Because of the schedule change and stuff I need to get my emails on track with pdays being on Thursday. So instead of reporting Monday-Sunday it'll be Thursday-Wednesday from now on. Because of this I have 10 days to report to make this change!! Have fun reading haha. 

Well I am in Dayton now. After 6 months my time in Quincy has sadly come to an end. I absolutely loved Quincy and left a piece of my heart there but I'm ready to take on Dayton. The people here need to experience Elder Proctor haha. Here's what I've been up to the past week and a half.

Monday 6/19

We had our half pday half regular day. It was pretty wierd changing the schedule. We weekly planned in the afternoon and it made it feel like a Thursday haha. We had dinner with the Sandlins and a youth lesson with their daughter afterwards.

Tuesday 6/20

We had our last district council in Susanville that went well. We had a district lunch at Bings afterwards. They have some really good sushi for it being in a smaller California town. We then headed back to Greenville and we had service with Joy Ann and Hugh. We raked leaves and did some yard work. Afterwards we had dinner with Paul and Sherry Ann. We had a lesson following dinner and we committed Sherry Ann to be baptized on July 16th! Her husband, Paul, is the former bishop of the ward and they recently married so that will be cool to see her be baptized next month. We had some plans for the last hour of the day but boy did that change. Somehow I got a speeding ticket with TIWI. For those that don't know TIWI is the tracking device installed in every mission vehicle and you have to log in when you drive. It tracks where you are, if you are speeding, driving aggressively, not wearing your seatbelt, and pretty much everything else that gets you pulled over by police. When TIWI catches you doing something wrong, it tells you. LOUDLY. I've been out for over 14 months now and I have heard her yell at me thousands of times. It also gets put on your driving record when it tells you you're doing something wrong. Now that you know what TIWI is let's get to the story. We are driving back into Quincy from a great lesson with Sherry Ann. I'm driving through downtown and I see a cop behind me with its lights on. I'm thinking there's no way hes pulling me over. TIWI hasn't screamed at me. I'm thinking maybe I ran a stop sign but I've been here for nearly 6 months and I don't remember ever stopping on the road I'm on. He comes up to the window and tells me that he logged me going 41 in a 25 over by the Chevron before the turn into downtown. I'm like what??? First off TIWI would never allow me to go that fast without yelling at me and 2. The speed limit sign for 25 is literally RIGHT at the Chevron. He's basically saying I was going too fast right when the speed limit changed and gave me no time to slow down. I'm pretty confused and I tell him that we have a device in our car that tells us when we are speeding and it didn't go off so I don't know why it didn't. He didn't like me pointing that out and he responded pretty snarky by saying "Well I have something in my car that tells me that your were." I give him my stuff and he goes back to his car. The whole time im thinking about all the things wrong with me getting stopped because TIWI didn't go off. He comes back and tells me that he's giving me a citation and what to do and everything. I take it and off we go. We turn around and check the place that he tells me that I was speeding which made the whole thing make even less sense. We immediately drop our plans for the last hour of the day and head over to the cop in our ward, Brother McAllister. We tell him everything and about TIWI and stuff and he said we have a valid story if we can get the TIWI record (which we totally can) and prove that we weren't speeding. He also said that he knows the other cop and he usually gives well deserved tickets and based on what is written he has a valid story as well. He gave me my options and then me left. We text the district chat saying that we know that Proctor is staying for another transfer. Everyone is assuming that President called to tell us that I'm being a DL or something but we responded saying it's because I'll be in court  everyone was confused and worried and we called and told them the story. Anyways even though I truly and wholeheartedly believe I wasn't speeding or I shouldn't have gotten a ticket I'm just gonna avoid the hassle of getting it taken away and just pay the fine and be done with it. Besides Brother McAllister made a good point. How many times have I sped and not gotten caught. Many many times haha

Wednesday 6/21

It was a pretty stressful day because we were getting transfer news that evening. It's hard to keep your mind focused on the work when you could potentially be moving in 2 days. Luckily it was a service filled day. In the morning we helped the Sandlins prep their garden and clean up their yard. After that we had lunch at Lucios with Bill and Larry. After we ate we went over and chopped wood for them. That was really fun. I said my goodbyes to them and then we left. We were supposed to have a lesson with Michael but it fell through. During the evening I went to my last Plumas Disc Golf Club tag round. We have become regulars there so it'll be sad to leave it. I played my best round of disc golf though for my last time playing in Quincy. I guess it was God's way of rewarding me for my work in Quincy haha. I shot -9 (which is really good)  but still got 2nd place. Usually a -9 would've easily gotten you 1st place but there's a guy named Nick there and he is a professional and he shot -12. It's cool to know that I was right up there with a pro disc golfer!! We recieved the news that I'd be moving that night.

Thursday 6/22

Probably the most eventful pday of the mission. We were all over Quincy during the day. In the morning we went over to Portola and play the disc golf course there. It's a really nice course. Then after we contacted a bunch of people because I was saying my goodbyes to all the people in Quincy. It kinda hurt saying good byes because I'd been here for 6 months and I really got close to the members but also the community in general. I actually said bye to more nonmembers leaving Quincy than I have any other area. Quincy taught me that as a missionary just because someone isn't "progressing" or taking the lessons doesn't mean you can't minister to them. This is already my view on missionary work but my time in Quincy expounded on the idea and confirmed it. This is why we were so well known in Quincy. I'll cherish my time in Quincy forever. That evening I had my last dinner with the Dolezals (which was a hard goodbye) and then we went to my last Thursday night basketball. The few Greenville members finally pulled up which was awesome to see. I'll also cherish the success of Quincy ball that I started forever as well.

Friday 6/23

Transfer day. I finished up packing in the morning and then we headed off to Reno. There was a lot of missionaries at transfers and I got to see some of the missionaries who have served in Dayton and they told me all about it and how fun it is. I met Elder Horner and then we went with Elder Thompson for an hour or two as we waited for the transfer van to show up from its trip across the mission. Once Elder Thompsons companion arrived, which is Elder Larsen one of my sons haha, we departed for Dayton. We actually went through my old area in the VC Highlands so I stopped and said hi to the Krum kids. After that we continued on the Dayton and arrived around 9pm. I unpacked and was ready for the next phase of my mission.

Saturday 6/24

My first day in Dayton. We had a packed day. I was looking through their area book and it wasn't really filled and there was alot of empty spaces throughout the past month so we changed that haha. Our area book was full today! In the morning we went to a less active member and chatted with him for a while. The rest of the morning was spent finding. After lunch we picked up some money from the Mouritsens because they couldn't feed us that any anymore. We had a lesson with Maddy but they fell through. We replaced that with contacting some people in area book. We had dinner at Compadres and a youth in our ward works there and hooked us up with a $20 bill when the check came!! Colton was taught well haha. After dinner we had a great lesson with David and talked about his progression towards baptism. One thing that is something that comes with serving in Dayton are the kids at the apartment complex. We are like celebrities here and the kids are constantly watching for us to be home and they instantly come pounding on our door asking to play, have a Popsicles, or try to come in our apartment..... The elders that were here a year ago baptized a couple of them. They even let them hang out in the apartment which is not ok at all and in my opinion they were not ready for baptism so it has left us with a babysitting job pretty much. They are some good hearted kids but are a bit needy.

Sunday 6/25

My first day attending Dayton Ward and let me tell you this ward is GIGANTIC!! They really combined the Comstock and Dayton wards so its 2 wards in one. There were 8 deacons passing the sacrament and the chapel and gym were filled. What was crazy was that I heard throughout the day that it was a low numbers day and alot of people were gone and I was appaled to here that. I'm used to Quincy having 35-50 people on a good day and there was like 300 people!! We get fed every night here which is awesome and they are over 1000 member records in Dayton so that'll keep us really busy. I'm excited. The youth are really cool and I already started a basketball night here haha. It'll be this Saturday. During the afternoon we contacted some people and then after dinner we had some youth lessons as well as lessons with nonmembers. 

Reply hi or something if you see this. It'll let me know who actually read these things or not lol. Kidding but not kidding 

Monday 6/26

We had service with Shawn in the morning. Probably the easiest service ever because we legit just set up his Wii for him and tested to see which games worked  I was very tempted to play the games but I stayed strong haha. Afterwards we had a lesson with him. We conducted our weekly planning session during the afternoon and then went to dinner. During the evening we played kickball with the kids at the apartment complex. 

Tuesday 6/27

We had district council in Carson City. It was my first one with this district and it was pretty fun. Elder Rice is a dope district leader and our district is cool. During the afternoon we had a lesson with Maddie. We brought a youth with us and Maddies little brother was all over him during the lesson. He made a friend haha When we left he started crying because he didn't want Macen to leave haha. We had lesson with a guy named Barry at the church but he didn't show up but a cool thing happened. A lady was knocking on the door and we opened it and it turned out to be a non active member needing help and wanting to make a return the church potentially. We gave her the secretary's number to get an appointment with Bishop and invited her to church. That was cool. After dinner we had a couple of lessons. 

Wednesday 6/28

I met President and Sister Saxton!!!!!! Let me tell you I am soooo excited to have them as our mission leaders. They are awesome. President Saxton was cracking jokes the whole time and is very relatable. I am super excited. The whole meeting was with the Carson zone and you could feel the feeling in the room that everyone was pleased with who our President is. Whenever he would crack a joke everyone would look at each other and laugh because that something we aren't used to. After the meeting we headed back to Dayton and had service with the Uhtofs. After that we had some finding for 2 hours. There's actually a micronation here in Dayton called the Republic of Molossia. After dinner we had service with the Soderborg family.

Lesson Reviews

Sherry Ann

Great lesson with Sherry Ann. We read Mosiah 18:25 to teach keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We taught the Law of the Fast and how it blesses us and how it should be done. We showed a video about the 10 commandments. We also taught how it is a commandment to obey and honor the law. We finished the lesson off by reading 3 Nephi 27:20 to reemphasize that being baptized by someone holding the proper authority is a commandment of God. We asked if she would be willing and comfortable to be baptized and she said yes! We set a date for July 16th!!

David

We discussed David's current progress and how we can help him. He says that he just needs read scriptures more and to talk to his parents and then he will be baptized. This conversation might not go well so we talked about how he can prepare himself for it. We talked about putting our trust in God by reading 2 Nephi 4: 33-36. We explained how we can pray for these stumbling blocks to be removed. We got on the topic of how he was hurt by a member in the past so we discussed forgiving others. He said that he felt good after the video we showed and we helped him recognize that that's the Spirit. We invited him to pray for his stumbling blocks to be taken out of the way and to study the scriptures daily again.

Addington Youth

We had a great youth lesson with the Addingtons! We taught the Plan of Salvation combined with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The whole family was engaged and it went very well!

Harker Youth

The kids know a good amount of the information that we taught. We discussed the Plan of Salvation as well as the Gospel of Jesus Christ when talking about our life in earth. It was a great youth lesson!

Krista

We talked with her and her parents about the accommodations that we can make in order for her to be baptized. She pretty much chickened out at her baptismal service and we are gonna practice with her beforehand so she is comfortable doing it. We made sure to let her know that if she isn't ready then she can wait but if she still wants to be baptized then we will do it!

Shawn

It went pretty well. He is mostly at the same place as last time. He loves us and believes what we teach is true but isn't ready to leave his other church. He also isn't ready to come to the knowledge that there is only one church that has the priesthood athourity. This is the first week he actually has read and prayed. He said he felt good and that there was nothing negative. We invited him to read and pray daily. We also invited him to pick a time to attend church.

Maddie

We taught the Restoration by playing Jenga. She had also read her children's Book of Mormon well past what we had invited so that was great. She was able to tell us the Restoration based on the book in detail before we even taught! We watched the Ask of God video about the first vision and she liked that. She is heading of to Illinois for a couple of weeks so we invited her to read up to Chapter 24 of her children's BoM.

Ruganis

Well Jesse his sister is super excited and wants to learn. Uriah was told that if he takes the lessons he can get a tattoo. We retaught the resto briefly and invited hi to read and pray to see if this was really something he was interested in and wanted to pursue. Sister rugani wants him to get baptized and take lessons, but told him like we did that he has to decide on his own.

Bruce and Evie

These are some elect people. They are receptive and love the missionaries. They were very upfront and open about how they live together and how Bruce doesn't even want to stop drinking coffee. He said he has questions(doubts) and wants to keep meeting with us to resolve the cpncerns. Evie wants Bruce to be baptized. They both recognize that something might change this time with us where they might decide to get baptized. They are planning on looking into getting married.

Finally you have made it to the end of my longest email of the mission and you'll never had to read one this long again haha. Trust me. I will stop talking now.

Have a great week. I love yall

Elder Proctor

Quincy Week 24 (Mission Week 63)

 Hey guys!!

Happy late Fathers Day to all the Father's out there! Especially my dad and grandpa. I love yall! 

This week was the last week of the missionary schedule that I am used to before it changes. A lot of change is happening this upcoming week. A new mission president, a new weekly schedule, transfers, and now we just had an announcement that we aren't allowed to have furniture in our apartments. No couches, no recliners, no nothing. We are only allowed a study chair and a chair for eating. Oh well. Does it make complete sense to me no but we are still gonna get rid of all the furniture. Later on in the email will be a good story on how my zone reacted to this change. Here's how my week went

Monday

It was our last Monday Pday before it gets changed to Thursday. The Portola elders came over for a round of disc golf. Elder Whetten accidentally shanked a shot and he hit someone on a different teepad. That person cussed him out and I felt bad for him haha. The guy immediately apologized for calling him a "Freaking Moron" about 10 seconds after he realized that wasn't necessary. Elder Whetten has barely ever played haha

Tuesday

Because of Zone Conference we didn't have district council. We played a round of disc golf in the morning with Blake and Brother Dolezal and then had a awesome lesson with Taylor afterwards. During the afternoon we had a lot of time proselyting because our lesson with Robn fell through. We had dinner with the Meyers in Greenville so we drove there and back. Taylor said that he had a softball game at 6:30 and told us where it was so we wanted to go watch it. We checked both places he said they play at but no one was there. Oh well. Instead we proselyted and went over to Chad. He was drunk as usual but he loves us haha. He started smoking weed halfway through and oh man did that hit him quickly. He couldn't even keep his eyes open. We read 5 verses and he thanked us profusely for coming and begged us to stay 20 more minutes but off we went haha

Wednesday

I finally got to go to the temple after 10 months!!!!!! It was so great. We did an endowment session with the Zone and President and Sister Dunn. It was the first time I've went since the recent changes so that was cool. Afterwards we had a shortened version of Zone Conference. We had two trainings by the zone leaders and STLs. Then we heard the departing testimonies of Elders Bake and Boyce as well as President and Sister Dunn. It was crazy to realize that President Dunn is really leaving. I remember meeting him fresh off the plane nearly 15 months ago and thinking wow it's a long time until we get a new President. Well here we are. It's bittersweet but I'm thankful for what President Dunn has taught me and how he has helped me along the mission. After Zone Conference ended we rushed back to Quincy to make it in time for the disc golf club night. We hadn't been in 3 weeks because of other arrangements and the people were starting to wonder where the missionaries have been haha. I played well and shot a -6! I got 3rd place that night. I got a beautiful eagle on Hole 13 having a 350ft drive and sinking a 60 ft putt!

Thursday

Not much happened Thursday morning because our service fell through and didn't have a good backup plan. We conducted our weekly planning session but only planned until Monday because it would be weekly planning again because of the schedule change. We had dinner with the Williams and they had a very old rotary payphone on the wall that somehow still worked. I tried it out by calling our phone but it didn't work. I then dialed my mom's number not really thinking it would work but it did!! I was astonished haha. I just said Hi it's Elder Proctor calling from an ancient rotary phone and hung up haha. That evening we had Thursday night basketball.

Friday

We had service at the food pantry in the morning. That is always fun. They are older people that work there so they love having us young missionaries helping every other Friday. We had a lesson with Sidney at a park that went well. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around town and contacting people. After dinner we made some member visits for the rest of the evening. We dropped off some stuff of members that we had in our apartment and talked with each family for a little bit.

Saturday

We had service with Bill in the morning. We chopped wood which is always fun. Afterwards we proselyted a ton around different areas in town and contacted some people we knew. After dinner we had the monthly ward game night. We had the announcement of how we aren't allowed to have couches or any furniture in our apartments which made the zone chat a pretty funny experience. I sent a meme of Will Smith standing in an empty room and then others started sending GIFs of no furniture and we got chastised by an STL for not being obedient. She told us to drop to our knees..... The whole chat then proceeded to clown said STL for being self righteous haha. We all are gonna get rid of our furniture but there's no way anyone is ecstatic and looking forward to our apartments being bare and desolate haha.

Sunday

We left early to go remind Mike to come to church since he said he would after our good lesson last Sunday talking about hasn't come to church. Welp he didn't come to church.... he wasn't even home when we pulled up to remind him. Not much we can do with him if he doesn't come to church. Besides Mike not coming to church the rest of the meetings were good. We attended Quincy Ward today and we had the monthly potluck and it was Father's day. After church we called our dads and then we met up with Bekah at Pioneer Park for a Bible study. We each shared our beliefs about certain things and we pretty agree on them but in different interpretations. She invited us to her baptism in her church next Sunday so we will go to that. Do I wish she was baptized into our church well yeah but 1. You gotta respect agency and 2. Being baptized into any church is better than living a life of chaos and sin haha it's still a sign of faith on her part so why wouldn't we attend. Their church rented the community pool and they are gonna do the baptisms there. Our conversation got cut short because we had to go to dinner so after dinner we went over to her parents place and talked with all of her fam. That was pretty fun. A part of the mission I love is when you can talk with people who have different beliefs but still have mutual respect and still get along. That's the case with Bekah and her fam. Its a good break to not be chastised for our beliefs haha. The zone chat blew up again while we were at dinner with the Walmers because they sent the new housing requirements paper and everyone started sending GIFs and memes about not having furniture (not being disobedient at all) and the same STL and now her companion sent scriptures into the chat chastising us for disobedience....... I don't think they realize that everyone is gonna get rid of their furniture and by sending a meme of an empty room doesn't mean we are disobedient..... I do believe an elder might have crossed a line though when he sent Proverbs 21:19 in response to these sisters chastisement. Look the scripture up. I can't say that I didn't laugh.

Lesson Reviews

We had a great lesson with Taylor. We addressed how he was planning on being baptized somewhere in Chico and how that wouldn't be by the priesthood authority and wouldn't be binded in heaven. We talked about that for a bit and then addressed a major concern that he brought up to us. He told someone about his experience feeling the Spirit by reading the Book of Mormon and they told him about Revelations 22 and told him to stop reading it. We addressed that and it lead to a very spiritual led discussion on how to determine truth. He said that the he feels the Spirit from the Book of Mormon and wants to read it now that he understands how the Bible was put together. We invited him to read 2 Nephi 4 and to pray on where he should be baptized.

Sidney

We read from 1 Nephi 16 and discussed the principles we could learn from the chapter. We talked about having faith and how that guides our lives. We also talked about true repentance and having a sincere desire to change.

Well that's it for this week. Transfers are on Friday so I could be in a different area next week. I usually already know transfer news by now but we get it 2 days later now so I don't know yet. I know for sure I'll have a new companion but heres to change! Wish me luck!

I love yall

Elder Proctor

Quincy Week 23 (Mission Week 62)

Hey people how's it going?

This past week was pretty good. We had an interesting thing happen on Tuesday which you will read about. Nothing too crazy other than that one thing happened. Just regular ol missionary work. Doing the work of the Lord haha. Here's how the week went

Monday

Normal pday. During the evening we went to Roundtable Pizza with the Sandlins and then had a youth lesson afterwards. Their grandson, Hunter, is 9 years old and they were saying that he wants to get baptized so hopefully we can get that ball rolling. 

Tuesday

We had district council in Susanville and then headed straight back to Quincy afterwards to help out at the blood drive that was at the church. We recieved a referral early that morning from a guy named Daniel and we put it off until later in the afternoon. While we were at the blood drive we sent a text introducing ourselves and asking if we can call him later. Usually these referals go nowhere but within 5 minutes we got a text back from him saying that he and his wife are very interested in the LDS church and would love us to call and start teaching them. We set up a lesson over the phone at 7pm and Elder Salinas and I were very very happy. We had a potential family of 6 wanting to come to church. We immediately knelt down in prayer and thanked God and asked Him to help us minister to their needs as best as possible. Well 7pm rolls around and we call him and it went extremely well. We introduced ourselves and got to know why he sent the referal. He said that he and his wife are looking for a church and they know there is truth out there but they just need to find it. He said he has 4 kids and that led us to talking about how our Church is very family oriented and how the family is the most important unit. We also talked about what a standard Sunday service looks like and we committed he and his family to come to church on Sunday. We also invited them to the Game Night on the 17th. We set up a lesson for Saturday at 2pm. We hung up the phone and we immediately sent a voice clip to our district chat about our missionary success with this referral and how we will be having a family of 6 coming to church!! Well all good things come to an end but this one ended extremely quick. We recieved multiple texts from Sister Sandlin about an hour after our phone call saying that he is a con artist, drug addict, and is trying to scam the Church for money and food. One of her friends is good friends with him and she said that after our call he called her friend and told her all about how he is about to take "The Mormons" for a ride. He doesn't care about anything we believe in and just wants the Church's money. Her friend then called her (Sister Sandlin) to tell her about it which then the information got passed down to us. She told us that everything he said is not true and to not go to the house because it's not safe. Crazy how quickly things can change haha. I'm thankful that we were able to be given a heads up before we started trying to teach someone who is unsafe and doesn't care about anything we have to say. 

Wednesday

We helped out at the blood drive again in the morning. After lunch we proselyted downtown and had a discussion with Robin. Pretty much the entire day was spent walking and talking to people we saw out and about. The weather was also not the best. 

Thursday

We helped Bill and Larry move some stuff from one house to another. That took up the whole morning. After lunch we conducted our weekly planning session. After that we went out and invited some people to the Bible Study we are gonna try to start. We then had Thursday night basketball. 

Friday

We had service with Sue Ann again during the morning. We were there from 10-12. After lunch we went out tracting and after an hour or so of that we drove to Greenville to do work there. We went through our area book and tried to contact some members that we havent met. Most of them didn't answer our their house was burned. We had dinner with the Meyers and they made hamburger pie! Sister Meyers asked on Sunday if we could give her a recipe that our moms made and I gave her that. It turned out well! They also expressed that we are the first missionaries in years that they have actually known and had a relationship with so that's awesome. The whole Greenville branch has said that and it's just because we have scheduled dinners with them haha. Anyways after that we headed back down the Quincy and attended the high school graduation. A good number of the students graduating have come to Thursday night basketball so we actually knew a good amount of people there. 

Saturday

It was Bucks Lake opening day and there's a designated girls camp for the church up there and Brother Grandall has been trying to get ut ready for the summer. All Saturday morning was a joint service project with the stakes participating in girls camp this summer so I got to meet some members from Fallon, Sparks, and Reno. I was hoping that somehow there would be some members from my old wards in Reno there since they talked to me about girls camp before but sadly no one was there. Elder Salinas had some people there that were apart of his old ward so that was cool. Too bad I didn't get the same pleasure lol. It was still pretty fun though. After the service we headed back home and it the weather was pretty bad outside so I decided to make cookies for some of the people we know. We went out and dropped them off and then we had volleyball in the evening.

Sunday

We attended Greenville branch and it was their branch conference so there was alot more people there than usual. We had a potluck after which was awesome. Food is great. During the potluck one of the youth was trying to convince me to go play college basketball and that I'm good enough to play haha. He told me I was a waste of talent because I didn't want to do it lol. Hes 14. I don't have the drive to play D1. After that we were supposed to have a lesson with Brenda but it was a knock no answer. We tried to contact some more members we didn't recognize in area book and then we headed back to Quincy. We had our Bible Study that went pretty well and Bekah came too. After the study we got to talking with Bekah and we had a good conversation about our similar and different beliefs. We were even standing outside in the rain for part of it haha. We were late to dinner so we asked if we could come talk with her and her mom more and have a discussion and that will be this upcoming Saturday. After dinner we had a youth lesson with Jesse and then immediatly following hay we had a good lesson with Mike. We ended the day off by dropping some cookies to Maddy and her fam!

Lesson Reviews

Jennifer

We had a great youth lesson with Jennifer. We discussed the Gospel of Jesus Christ by reading 3 Nephi 27: 13-22. Hunter also expressed the want to be baptized so thats was awesome!

Daniel

We introduced ourselves and got to know why he sent the referal. He said that he and his wife are looking for a church and they know there is truth out there but they just need to find it. He said he has 4 kids and that led us to talking about how our Church is very family oriented and how the family is the most important unit. We also talked about what a standard Sunday service looks like and we committed he and his family to come to church on Sunday. We also invited them to the Game Night on the 17th. We set up a lesson for Saturday at 2pm.

(this turned out to be a complete lie. He will be judged accordingly haha)

Robin

We talked about about the Plan of Salvation and the correlation between our beliefs and hers. We discussed repentance quite a but and what true repentance is. She is really interested in what we belief but not completely for the reason to convert but just to know

Jesse

We had a great youth lesson with Jesse. He knew the basics of the Restoration and we were able to bring the Spirit and invite him to pray to know the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and he said he would do it!

Mike

We discussed Mike's current progress and how he has not kept the commitment of coming to church. We read 2 Nephi 4 with him and talked about Nephi putting his trust in God forever. We related this to how Mike needs to come to church to show his trust in God. He says that he has trouble saying no to people when they need help on Sundays. We were pretty blunt with him and told him that unless he comes to church he won't progress and grow his relationship with God like we know he wants to. We committed him to come to church once again and promised that the needs of other will be fulfilled even if he comes to church.

Thats it from this past week. This upcoming week is exciting. We have our last zone conference with President Dunn and we get to go to the temple beforehand with our whole zone!! Super excited! 

I love yall

Elder Proctor

Quincy Week 22 (Mission Week 61)

Hey everyone!

I hope everyone had a good week because I know I did! This transfer is flying by. I hit my 14 month mark on Sunday which is crazy. I'm nearly 60% of the way through the mission. Next month I will hit single digits of months until I return home. Anyways here's how my week went

Monday

We had a pretty normal pday. It rained for most of the afternoon and evening so we couldnt really do much.

Tuesday

We had a special district council in Portola. President and Sister Dunn were attending as well as the zone leaders. We had an incredible meeting. It was probably the best district council of my mission. We talked about true faith, obedience, and sacrifice. Something that stuck with me is 1 Samuel 15:22 and it says that obedience is better than sacrifice. This stuck to me because as missionaries we have sacrificed a lot to be here but that doesn't make up for the disobedience that we sometimes fall in to. You can't break the rules and use the excuse that we have sacrificed alot so that means it's ok. A funny thing that happened was that Elder Bake (ZL) asked Salinas for a haircut during lunch in Portola but Elder Salinas somehow misunderstood his message (which was pretty clear haha) and brought food to cook for he and and Elder Bake  I saw him getting in the car with some pretty old stuff that was in the fridge and I asked him why he was bringing it and he said he was gonna cook for Elder Bake. I asked "what about the rest of us." He said idk and I immediately thought that he didn't understand what Elder Bake wanted. Let's just say that Elder Bake was a bit disappointed when he thought he was getting a haircut but instead showed up to Portola with Elder Salinas having frozen chicken strips in his hand instead of clippers  Anyways after lunch I had my last interview with President Dunn. It was the most direct interview I've had. He immediately asked me how I would feel if I stayed in Quincy for another transfer. The whole interview was centered around me staying. So I'm very surprised to say this but it's more likely that I stay for a 5th transfer than leaving come transfer time in 2 weeks. Guess that's a good sign that President likes me being here and the work I'm doing. Anyways the rest of the day I went on exchanges with Elder Larson in Susanville.

Wednesday

Elder Larson had a couple of Zoom appointments in the morning so that took up a lot of time. We didn't really do anything missionary work related the whole exchange but there's nothing he or I could've done about it. We ended exchanges that afternoon and then Elder Salinas and I had an amazing dinner. It's not too often that you have a dinner appointment with a non member family but we had a great one with Bekah and her mom and step-dad. Her mom (Val) made some awesome curry per my request. We talked, laughed, and played card games. They are really some great people. Something funny that happened was that Val offered Lucky Charms to us if we didn't like the curry. People do this all the time and it's rare that I actually take up the offer. But for some reason Lucky Charms were sounding really good and I was craving them while we were playing cards. It took me like 15 minutes to work up the courage to ask for them but I finally did. I said "Its OK if you didn't mean this and I don't need to have any and also the curry was amazing but are those Lucky Charms still up for grabs." I was thinking once I asked it would be a simple Yes of course but that didn't happen. Val answered and said that they didn't have any milk . Everyone immediately started laughing and I had to respond to that on the fly haha. I was like ohhhh thats completely fine I wasn't even hungryy it was just a craving I don't need it. Bekah was cracking up making fun of her mom saying who the heck offers cereal when they have no milk. Bekah problem solved and went and asked their grandma that lives behind them for some milk. It was like 10 minutes between me asking and finally receiving the Lucky Charms. Anyways I was a very fun dinner.

Thursday

We helped Sister Holland and her husband Chuck with some service in the morning and then they fed us lunch afterwards. During the afternoon we conducted our weekly planning session. After that we ate dinner with the Jordans and then had Thursday night basketball. Even with FRC gone we still have enough to have a good night.

Friday

We helped out at the food pantry in the morning and then we went to the Dolezals house for a high school graduation celebratory barbecue for their son Andrew and friends Blake and Jenna. That was fun. During the afternoon Elder Salinas didn't feel good so we took it easy for a little bit. That evening we attended the graduation ceremony. We actually saw a lot of people that we knew there so that was a very good use of time. After the graduation we walked around downtown. A guy stopped us outside the club and I thought he was about to bash us but he didn't fortunately. We gave our number and hopefully he uses it.

Saturday

There was a car show in Quincy so we went to that and looked at all the classic cars and talked to people there. We proselyted pretty much the whole afternoon. Nothing really important happened unfortunately. After dinner we went to volleyball which was really fun. A couple of the guys that come to basketball came which made it a bit more competitive and we had a fun time.

Sunday

We went to church in Greenville and it was filled!! Because of Jacob Cooks graduation on Friday his whole family was there which raised the Greenville numbers from 10-14 to 29! Now that I just wrote that it still doesn't seem like alot but for Greenville it totally is. After church we went to another celebration barbecue at the Cooks house and practically the whole Greenville branch was there. The ribs and brisket were also very very good. It impressed a Texan haha. The rest of the day we had a couple of lessons lined up but they all fell through so that turned into tracting. Oh well what can you do 

Lesson Reviews

Robin

We were planning on going over the Restoration but she had some questions that took us a different way. We discussed our rules as missionaries and the lifestyle we live. We also talked about the nature of God. She had a question on what we believe happens in the next life so we gave a brief explanation about the Plan of Salvation and answered her questions that pertained to that topic.

Legit the rest of of our lessons we had planned for this week fell through.

Well that's it for this week. I love yall!!

Have a great week

Elder Proctor