Nacogdoches Week 18 (Mission Week 101)

Hey everyone!

Like I said in the email I sent a couple of days ago I am going to do a weekly update on the last couple of weeks of the mission so here I am to report on Week 101! Turns out I calculated one week short last week when catching up with my emails so the last email was Week 83-Week 100. It is so crazy to me that I have hit triple digits on the amount of weeks I have been set apart as a missionary.

Here's how the week went.

Monday

I treat Mondays as my pday so I didn't have any service planned for the day. I just worked on writing my catch up email and some other stuff. I was going to go disc golf with the missionaries but it was raining so we couldn't go. We did go play basketball at the church with the Spanish elders though and that was fun.

Tuesday

I had a zone conference in Shreveport and that was really fun. I gave a ride to both the English and Spanish elders so it was all of us packed into the Camry haha. Zone conference was great and the training that was given was helpful to me. It was mainly on lasting conversion even after the mission so that applied to me very well as I am closing out the mission. The main thing we focused on was how the #1 convert you should have on the mission is yourself. I definitely am not perfect and have my own things I still struggle with but I can definitely say that I have been converted more so than I was 2 years ago. I'm glad that I have been able to continue going to zone conferences as a service missionary. That night we had a YSA activity at the Hintzes for a movie night in their theater room. That was fun.

Wednesday

I had my Bookmobile service during the afternoon. Mostly everything was the same besides the fact that I got to be the one driving around Nac this time because the car that we usually take had a dead battery so we had to make adjustments to the plan. I always have moments during this service where I am like "there is no other 21 year old guy chauffeuring old people and himself around being a Bookmobile haha." It was a good day.

 

Thursday

Thursdays are usually my most busy day. In the morning I went to the HOPE Food pantry. There were so many people that day that came through. We did get done until 30 minutes after usual. We ran out of boxes to give out and there were still tons of cars in line which hasn't happened in the 3 months I've been doing it. After that I went straight over to the Serenity Garden and worked on projects there. This is when Mr. Gary and I went out and handed out free eggs for the 1st hour like I mentioned in my previous email. I stayed a bit longer than usual for the day. After that I went home and grabbed dinner and then went to Institute. After institute I headed over to Lufkin for the basketball night they have.

Friday

It was a really chill day. I was supposed to spend 2 hours at the Serenity Garden but when I got over there Mr. Gary said that he needed some rest and that I could be free for the day haha. I didn't have anything else planned for the day so I just made my own stuff to do. That's when I got the rest of my previous email written and some other busy work done.

Saturday

I had my service district devotional in the morning and then I drove over to Tyler for a district activity with the service missionaries in East Texas. We played board games and had pizza. It was fun. I had to leave a bit early though because we were celebrating my parents birthday that night. We went to Jalapeno Tree and then had cake and ice cream at home.

 

Sunday

Church was great as it always is. I had a temple recommendation interview since it has already been 2 years since I first went through the temple. I have grown to love interviews with my priesthood leaders. I always have a better feeling after than I did going in. The rest of the day was restful as all Sundays should be.

Well that's it from this past week. You will only be getting 2 more emails from me. The mission has flown by but hasnt at the same time. Time passes weirdly on the mission haha.

I love yall. Have a great week!

Elder Proctor

Fallon Week 14 and Nacogdoches Weeks 1-17 (Mission Weeks 83-100)

 Hey everyone!!

Man oh man a lot of stuff has happened since I last wrote. I kinda regret not writing emails these past couple months while finishing out as a service missionary at home. Many of yall have asked me to continue on with my emails but I would procrastinate and not do it. I have been meaning to write for weeks now so I'm happy I am finally getting to it. Sorry future me. You live and you learn. Just for some perspective last time I wrote I was around 590 days out. Today is 4 days after my 23rd month mark and my 704th day as a missionary. I only have 14 days left as my release date is March 22nd to coincide with the Dallas Texas East mission transfer schedule. In the end I will have spent 82% of my mission in the Nevada Reno mission and the remaining 18% here at home.

First off I'll update y'all on the condition of my leg aka the culprit of my return home. Lets just say it was a VERY good idea for me to come home. The months of November and December were still very painful and no progress came with my leg. It's probably a good thing it went that way because it would have sucked if my leg magically healed after 1 week of being home. I went to many doctor's visits with the regular doctor and a rheumatologist in Tyler. After an MRI, a month-long trial run of a prednisone taper, and other things I got put on a medication called Sulfasalazine that has seemed to do the trick. It wasn't until January that I finally found relief and as of today I would say it's 95% better. I am able to play basketball, workout, and have no pain while walking. There are some days where there is ever so slight discomfort but I believe that will resolve itself as time passes on. Now that my leg is better I look back to when it was hurting and DANG IT WAS BAD. In the moment I tried to suppress it but looking back I was in pain if not extreme pain every day. All I know is that I would NOT have gotten the care that I needed to reach the point I am at now if I stayed in Nevada. All things happen for a reason.

Now to talk about my life as a service missionary and what I've been up to since I returned home from a proselyting mission. I didn't really know what to expect coming home but it's been fun being able to be around the missionaries here in Nacogdoches. It was good timing that I came home at the same time that the Church integrated the service missions and proselyting mission to be one mission. I go to zone conferences and am involved in all the activities as I was in Nevada which was a change that came right after I got home. I have gotten close with the missionaries here which I am grateful for because without that it definitely would have been harder these last couple of months.

As a service missionary you spend your time doing service in your community and for your stake/ward. The places you go are called your "service opportunities." I have had many service opportunities these past 4 months but the ones I list are the ones that have taken most of my time. They are the Bookmobile program with the Friends of the Nacogdoches Public Library organization, the HOPE Food Pantry of Nacogdoches, the Serenity Garden at the Brown Family Health Center of Nacogdoches, weekly temple work, and service projects for members of the ward.

The Bookmobile program is a program where we take books to local nursing homes and care facilities and the occupants can check out library books without having to go there themselves. In essence we bring the library to them. They do this for 7 care facilities in Nacogdoches. We do half of the facilities one day then the next half the next day. It takes about 4 hours each day to complete. From the outside looking in it might not look very fun but I have grown to enjoy it. All the other volunteers that participate are all elderly and retired so they have enjoyed having me be there to do the heavy lifting and keep them company. I ride in the car with them too so each time I go they always say "Are you enjoying hanging out with us old people or are you sick of us yet." I always say nope I'm fine haha. Even though I get released this month I will continue to help them out until I head off to FSY in May because it's only a couple of days a month and they like me being there with them.

I have enjoyed going to the HOPE food pantry as well. All the missionaries in Nac go each Thursday and help out because it is their busiest day. We prepare the produce boxes from 10:30-11:30, then eat lunch that this one lady brings for all the volunteers, and then load up the boxes for the people in the drive thru from 12 to 1. One of my favorite things on the mission was going to service with the other missionaries in my district so I have been happy that I've been able to continue this here in Nac.

The Serenity Garden has been fun as well. I can thank Sister Cox for helping me get this opportunity aligned. The garden is in the back of a health center and is used to help people relax and settle down. I help out with projects to get the garden ready to host bigger events in the future. The guy who is over it is named Mr. Gary and he is awesome. The first time I went over all I did was level out some ground with a shovel and before I could start he and I just talked for 10-15 minutes and he expressed how grateful he was and how much this garden meant to him and how I was helping him with his pride and passion for the garden. All he wants is to help people feel better and that is very admirable. We also talked about missions and the church. I go there twice a week. Just yesterday I did something that I hadn't done there before and that was we picked up 60 dozen eggs from the food pantry and delivered them to people he knew. That was great.

Being able to go to the temple has been AMAZING. I have loved being able to plan my days around doing work at the temple. On the mission going to the temple was not very common so being able to go almost every week has made me very happy. Some of Bryce's away games were near Houston so I made those days a temple day and then went to Bryce's game afterwards.

I have enjoyed being able to help out in the ward as well. I have helped out many of the ward members with yard work and other things. Whenever I have open time in my week I try to fill it by asking around if anyone needs any help. One time I helped Sister Hodges' aunt and she tried to pay me $200. It was so hard to say no and I had to say no multiple times. She wrote out a check and everything and gave it to Sister Hodges because she was trying to pay her to but Sister Hodges said she wouldn't be cashing it. Service is free as a service missionary!!

I will mention a couple of things that stand out to me the past couple of months that I'd like to have in the records haha.

The biggest thing I am grateful for is that I was able to be here for Bryce's senior season of basketball. I found myself on the mission at times wishing I had not gone to BYUI for a semester because that would've made it to where I could've been home for his basketball season. Well thanks to God's plan I was able to be here for it and let me tell you it was WORTH IT! I returned home the day after his first game and didn't miss a single game and just this past week his season came to an end with an AMAZING playoff run going 3 rounds deep. They probably would've gone further if they didn't run into #1 ranked Lancaster. It was such a fun way to end the last high school basketball season for this line of the Proctor boys. Now we wait 10-15 years for all the kids of us to be playing haha.

Another thing is the holiday season was awesome. Because I was home all of the Proctors were together under one house for all the holidays which probably won't happen again (at least for a while). We had the biggest Christmas ever!! With 11 people that makes for a lot of fun on Christmas morning.

I have been able to go out with the missionaries quite a bit but one experience stands out in particular. To start off I'll say that I have never given as many talks in a couple months time as I have since Ive got home. I think I've given 6 talks now because whenever somewhere in the stake needs a speaker my name is always among the first that come up. Well back in December I spoke in Rusk and the sister missionaries had someone come to church that day. His name is Zayha. Long story short he likes my talk and that led to me driving down to Rusk to go on lessons with the sisters and Zayha. He was all ready for baptism and I was going to be the one baptizing him but the day of the baptism came and he DIDN'T SHOW UP. The baptism was in Nacogdoches too so all the Rusk group drove the 45 mins down and he didn't show up. I felt so bad for Sister Bennett and Haws. It would've been each of their first baptism on the mission and he straight up didn't show up. I guess it is a good thing that he didn't get baptized because we haven't been able to meet with him again so that is really a sign that he would have fallen off the deep end once the sister left Rusk. So even as a service missionary I have experienced the classic highs and lows only a teaching mission brings haha.

Well that's all that I can think of at the moment. I know there have been many other things but they will be only etched in my memory because I failed to keep writing emails about the service mission as I did as a teaching missionary (which I regret). All is well though. I will send out an email these last 2 weeks to update yall on the final weeks of the mission.

Attached are some photos from the past few months. Just as my email writing went away, so did my photo taking haha

Thanks for everything. I love yall!

Elder Proctor