Fallon Week 13 (Mission Week 82)

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great week. The first week of this transfer treated us well. A goal that we have this transfer is to have a member at each of our lessons and we managed to do it! Not only did we do that but we actually had more than 1 or 2 lessons this week haha. This area is a bit harder to find people in so we arent gonna be able to rack that stat but we figured we can rack the stat of members participating in lessons. Doing this has actually helped me have more of a drive to set up lessons with people too. You cant have a member participate in a lesson that isnt real haha.

An update on my leg is that nothing has really changed since last week. Its still giving me pain but not bad enough to not do anything but still bad enough to notice it throughout the day. Its now popping all the time. Popping as in cracking your knocked popping. One advancement is that I remembered the back problems I had in 8th grade and I was prescribed this one medicine and it went away after a week of me taking it. I let the doctor know this and I now have this same medicine and Im hoping it will have the same effect as it did with my back because the symptoms are the same just in different places. Please keep praying for me because if it doesnt go away theres a chance of an early return of Elder Proctor to Texas that I really dont want to make. Heres what we were able to do despite my leg still giving me problems.

Monday

We had a great pday! We did a Halloween party with the district. I made pumpkin pancakes for everyone and they actually turned out a lot better than I thought they would. I would definetly make them again. We also carved pumpkins together which was really fun. That night we had dinner at the Johnsons and that was fun. 

Tuesday

With it being the first day of the new transfer we took the morning to do what we call "Transfer Prep" which is really just taking the morning to clean, plan exchanges, and just relax before another transfer of work. We also had nothing planned for the day because we thought we were gonna have to be apart of transfers but with neither of us leaving we had to find ways to stay busy throuhgout the day. We went over to the LifeCenter even though it wasnt our day to help out because the elders that usually do it on Tuesday werent in town due to transfers so we went ahead and did it. That afternoon they had a Halloween event going on downtown so we checked that out and talked to people there and then had dinner. That night was the final night of "gorilla time" and the haunted house. We had just as much fun as the first two nights. There was a third gorilla there this time and he turned out to be some random 15 year old kid who came through a different night and asked the owners if he could come and be a gorilla and they said yes. We got to know him a bit so that that was nice. The best part of the night was that the Johnsons daughters who werent able to come Saturday night with the rest of the family came this night with their boyfriends and friends. What was funny is that we knew the boyfriends names but they have no clue who we are even without the gorilla costumes on so even they got a little freaked out when we were chanting the boyfriends names haha That was the highlight of the night. Both Halloweens on the mission have come and went!

Wednesday

We had our weekly Preach My Gospel Zoom meeting in the morning and then after we did some proselyting. We then helped out at the LifeCenter and brought along the 3rd ward elders with us. That afternoon we had horse poo service and pretty much the whole district was there and the zone leaders so I got to meet the new additions to Fallon district. That night we finally had another lesson with Allan after a whole transfer of not meeting. We had Brother Christensen there with us. After the lesson Brother Christensen asked us to come to his house and give him a priesthood blessing so we did that and called it a night

Thursday

Sister Ratti (The lady who does our meal calendars) died unexpectedly this past month so we decided we would go the the funeral. She is known to be very good at making sure the missionaries are fed and takes that calling seriously and I can definetly say thats true because I have had a member meal every night while serving in the Carson River ward. Its a good thing we went too because in every speech her passion for making sure the missionaries were fed was mentioned by all the ones who spoke so us being there was kinda like paying tribute for every single missionary that has been blessed with member meals because of her service. I thought that was kinda cool. After the funeral we had service at a less active member farm. We conducted our weekly planning session after that and then had a great dinner with Brother Brice. That evening we went over the Carol F. and Scottys house and checked up on them. That morning we recieved a referal for Carol and she is already a member but occasionally when she wants a visit from the missionaries she just goes online to the church website and uses the link that is meant for nonmembers to have missionaries over but hey we will take it haha. She isnt able to go to church because of her health and then her housemate Scotty is not a member so us being there is productive. We just hung out with them for a bit and then set up weekly scripture reads with them each Sunday.

Friday

That morning we did some graphic creating for the Facebook page and then went to the LifeCenter for the 3rd time this week to volunteer. That afternoon we had a lesson with Liz and then did some proselyting in that neighborhood. Something really cool happened when we were there. So the Anderson family had a son return home from his mission on Friday and we are pretty close with them. We had already seen the airport picture on Facebook and we were proselyting the neighborhood that they live in. I said "That would be crazy if the Andersons pull up with Toby while we are walking" and literally 10 minutes later thats EXACTLY what happened. We were walking down and sure enough we see them in their truck coming back from Reno. They stopped and we talked for a couple seconds and then their daughter who wasnt able to make it to the airport because she is in college in Idaho rolled up while we were talking so we got to see their reunion which was pretty sweet. I was thiniking in my head "5 more months" haha. Anyways that night we went to the youth activity which was capture the flag at the Lattin Farms cornmaze so that was pretty fun. Some of the youth brought some nonmember friends too so that was awesome!

Saturday

In the morning we had service with Debbie and she made us lunch afterwards! I love when people do this. After that we had even more service with the Hutchings. Originally all we were gonna do was unload some heavy bags but it took a total of 15 minutes and we set aside 2 hours to help so we asked if there was anything else we could do and their son had an idea. So they have a ranch and 2 of their cows got loose and joined another herd on the property over and they havent been able to get them and it had been multiple days since they escaped. We were enlisted to help wrangle them back to their property. It was so much fun. First we had to catch the horses and once we did that we straight up had like a pep talk talking about the game plan and stuff it I legit felt like we were heading into battle to fight Thanos. We were running the whole property while the horses were zooming by separating the cows and we finally acccomplished the task. The whole ordeal took about an hour from start to finish. He said he will enlist our help again and I cant wait haha. Anyways after playing cow wrangler we had a lesson with Carol L. and then did some proselyting. That night we had a lesson fall through so we had to fill that time in with other stuff.

Sunday

We had church and then after lunch we did some proselyting and contacting people in one of the areas we can actually walk. Nothing really crazy happened that needs to be reported though other than the fact that it was fast sunday so we were both wanting it to be time for dinner haha. Our dinner was awesome though. It was with Sister Johnston and she invited Brother Emmons over to join us because she is a single lady. Talking to them was really fun and we had a really great spiritual discussion! That night we had our first weekly scripture read with Carol F. and Scotty. We had Matthew ( a youth ) come along with us and it was his first ever time coming out with the missionaries! Scotty is a really funny guy and so random at times. He was telling us some story on how he knows karate and just some random stuff and I kid you not in the middle of him talking he pauses and looks at Matthew straight in the eyes and says "You wouldnt believe the amount of ways I could kill you right now" and then proceeded to keep telling us about the guy he levitated back in the day. If I didnt know Scotty I would be worried but luckily he means no harm and is just an old guy with tall tales haha. Whenever we left Matthew told us that it was so fun and he wants to come back with us next week haha.

Lesson Reviews

Allan

We watched the Tree of Life Book of Mormon video to help Allan visualize the vision and then we discussed the symbolisms associated with each part of the vision. We discussed how baptism is part of walking the strait and narrow path. We talked about how through Christ we can avoid being "drowned" by outside influences and have joy in this life. Brother Christensen did a great job bearing testimony. We scheduled a return appointment for next Wednesday. His roommate at the moment came in at the end and we asked him if he would be interested at all and he said he might join in next time.

Liz

We had a great discussion with Liz reading Isaiah 53:3-9 and Mosiah 3:5-12! We related how both of these passages of scriptures prophesy of Jesus Christ and what He will do during His mortal ministry. We discussed how through Christ we all can be saved including those who didn't have the opportunity to know of Christ in this life. We also talked about prophets and how they help point others to Christ. We will be coming back next Saturday.

Carol L.

As usual it took a while to get started reading and while reading it was a struggle to keep her focused but she actually had some good comments. We read 2 Nephi 4:16-35 and discussed putting our trust in God. Carol had a good comment about how faith is a mustard seed so we told her to read Alma 32 which is about that. She said she actually liked what we read so we told her there are so many more passages of scripture in the Book of Mormon that are good if you just give it a chance. We will came back next Saturday and do what we did today again.

Carol F. and Scotty

We had a great discussion reading 2 Nephi 4 and talking about putting our trust in God. Carol said that she often feels scared that God will judge her for not going to church because of her health but we affirmed to her that God knows all of our circumstances and will judge accordingly. Matthew Bird did a great job contributing!

Thats it for this week! Im hoping this next week brings just as much good things as the last. We have zone conference, some lessons, and a lot of service planned so Ill let yall know how that goes next email!

Thanks for everything! I love yall!

Elder Proctor

Pictures are all from our Zone Chat streaks. If you don't know what Streaks are ask your kid our any young person who knows what Snapchat is haha

Fallon Week 12 (Mission Week 81)

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope yall had a great week this past week. I know I did! 

First off my leg is a little bit better but not completely fine. It's not flaring up as much as it was the past 2 weeks but it definitely still hurts at times. Thursday and Friday my knee was killing me but the rest of the week it was manageable. Thanks for all the prayers coming my way! 

Second thing is we got transfer news! Some of you might of seen on my Facebook page a couple of different towns pop up and might even thought that's where I was going. If this was you I'm not moving I was just updating all the places I have lived on the mission and didnt know it would come across peoples feeds haha. I am staying in Fallon for a 3rd transfer with Elder Takemori! We whitewashed in and were still here. We both thought one of us was gone for sure gone but looks like we get one more together!

Here's how my week went!

Monday

The district played more football for pday but since my leg is still acting up I couldnt really play. The highlight of the day was definitely the movie night at the Wadsworths house. Our mission did a Facebook challenge where you could gain points for the different ways of doing Facebook work and the Top 5 would win the prize of watching a movie at a local leaders house with the district! Well we took it seriously and racked up 30,000 points and won a movie night! We watched A Million Miles Away and it was actually pretty good. It was the first movie I've seen in 18 months so Id probably think anything was great haha

Tuesday

We had the last district council of the transfer in the morning and then did transfer predictions. We actually incorporated the lessons we learned from the movie the night before into our district council so that was cool. After our meeting and lunch I went and got some blood work done because of my leg. They took 8 viles of blood outta my arm which was way more than I thought they would lol. It didnt take very long and because they have a Renown lab here in Fallon we were able to get straight back to work instead of having to drive back to Fallon from Reno. We had service with one of our members neighbor and we did alot of weed pulling. The sisters tagged along with us so it made it go by quicker. After service we headed to the library to do our graphic creating for Facebook. That night we went to a Bible Study put on by one of the people in our Area Book. They all go to a different church here in Fallon so that was good that we got to be in their house and most of the people there were interested in talking about missions.

Wednesday

We did some proselyting in the morning and tried to get into contact with Allan but he wasnt home. We had a few solid lessons with him last transfer but we have not been able to meet with him this whole transfer. We had service at the LifeCenter (senior center) and the more we go the more people are starting to talk to us and enlist our help haha. We have been able to meet a good amount of people there and been able to schedule service with some older folks. We also had our weekly horse poo service with the other missionaries. This week they had all sorts of jobs for us to do. It was actually really windy and cold that day but it was still fun. That night was our Trunk or Treat!! I decorated our trunk and we bought ninja swords like last year and our costumes were "Defenders of Truth." The night was fun even though not as many people came to it as usual. A couple of families were out of town so numbers were abit lower but it was fun nonetheless. I love the holidays!

Thursday

We had service with Suzi in the morning but my knee was hurting pretty bad today so I had to take it easy. Luckily we had 4 other elders there with us so they picked up the slack. We went out to eat at Julios afterwards and then we had our weekly planning session. After that we went over to Debbie (she is a lady that is at the senior center as well as a friend of one of the members) and we did some yardwork. She is really nice and there may be some potential with her for teaching. After that we had dinner and then went to the other wards trunk or treat which was pretty fun. Right after that we were enlisted to help move a washing machine for one of the Lone Tree ward members and then to end of the night we went to the Huntzingers and printed off flyers for our music devotional on Sunday.

Friday

In the morning we had our weekly mission announcements Zoom and then we helped the 4th ward elders with some service. The whole afternoon was spent contacting all of our green dots (people being taught) and handing out flyers for the music devotional. We had a lesson with Liz that went well as well. We were actually able to give a flyer to most of our friends so that was a success. Friday night was probably one of the funnest nights of my mission. So some members of the Sheckler ward do a free haunted house thing every year and need volunteers so they asked the missionaries to help. We said yes and they put us in the gorilla suits and Elder Takemori and I got to be the gorillas that scare people!!!! Best service ever haha. We got into rhythm pretty quickly and the members were saying that we were the best gorillas they ever had haha. It was a small scale thing but many people were talking about the gorillas after on their way out haha. It was so fun.

Saturday

We had our devotional practice in the morning which took up a big chunk of time. That afternoon we helped a lady named Sarah that we met at the LifeCenter move some things from storage to her house. I hate to say it but that house was probably #1 dirtiest Ive seen on the mission. Ive been out for a while now so thats saying something. It was disgusting inside and there was clutter EVERYWHERE. I'm just glad we werent enlisted to help clean it we just had to move a TV and entertainment center. I wouldve sprinted out of there if we had to clean the house. After that we went to the library and created to posts for the upcoming week for Facebook and then we had dinner. That night was once again gorilla time!!! It was just as fun as the night before probably even more fun because there were more people that came and we already had our scare spots and routine down so it was great. Whats even better is the Johnsons came through (who is the less active family that we are really close to) because we texted Sister Johnson last night telling her to come with her family and to not tell them that we were the gorillas so we gave it our all to scare them. They have an unbaptized youth daughter and we got her so good. We made her cry haha. The husband is the least into the church and doesnt really care for missionaries but we even got him laughing so thats good haha. At the end of it Sister Johnson revealed who were were and their daughter was fine haha We have a joking relationship with their family so now we joke about Tensleys newfound fear of gorillas lol. The Dunhams haunted backyard will forever be a fond memory. 

Sunday

We had church in the morning and for the 5th Sunday it was centered around missionary work. The talks were actually really good and then for 2nd hour we talked to the youth. The ward will definetly more pumped about missionary work for a little bit so we are going to use that to our advantage. We got transfer news in the middle of the afternoon which came as a surprise because usually it comes at night. Elder Takemori and I are both staying for a 3rd transfer together. That afternoon we set up two lessons and the headed over to the Johnsons because we thought for sure one of us were gonna be leaving but we were able to share the good news that they will get to have both of us for 6 more weeks haha. That night was the music devotional and it went well. It was a bit choppy because our video presentation didnt work but the Spirit came through and helped. What was awesome was that Suzi came and we did not expect for her to actually come! We usually just do service for her but we are taking that as a sign that we can explore the potential of teaching her and having discussions!

Lesson Reviews

Liz

We read the Lord's Prayer from both Matthew 6 and 3 Nephi 13 to help her recognize that the Bible and the Book of Mormon go hand in hand. She said that it helped. She said that she doesn't know if she wants to do a deep study on the Book of Mormon which is why she prefers read from the Bible. We told her that we can keep it simple and just read a couple of verses when we come so we don't overwhelm her.

That's it for this week! I'm glad that there was no change because we can keep in our routine and keep working. This upcoming week should be good. We have some lessons lined up that I'm hoping to report on next week! 

I love yall! Have a great week!

Elder Proctor