4-30-12

Dear Family! 

How y'all doing? Mom and Dad are empty nesters till Sister Proctor gets home, Laura is out and about just loving life haha
Sounds like you are all doing great!

Mom I got your package, the cookies were delicious and I will see if I can get that paper signed the next time I go to the bank.

Dad, I found a van that is harder to fix than an Astro, Its a hyundai and the engine is under the front passenger seat, I was talking to the mechanic that was fixing it up and when I asked him where the engine was he said "nakatago" meaning hidden haha it gave me a good laugh, plus it was cool to talk about cars with this guy.

Another cool story, so we are teaching this less-active family and we invited them to come to church on Saturday, and right after we asked them to come to church, their 3 year old little girl shouted "iyan dapat!" which means "we should do that!" we had a good laugh at that one, They came to church and it was great! I love it when the people we teach actually do something! 

Oh another cool thing, there is a lot of carpenters here and the smell of sawdust is everywhere, its one of the few smells here that remind me of home. I do miss my woodshop.

Well I love all of you so much. This is the true gospel and I am pleased as punch to be doing my small part to spread it to the people here!
Love Elder Proctor

4-23-12

Hello family,
So remember how I told you about riding on the outside of those jeepneys? well I was doing it earlier today, just enjoying the air like a golden retriever sticking his head out the window, and as we were driving along we pass this cop and he stops the jeepney and then tells me how its illegal to do that haha so now I will just have to jam myself inside of the low ceiling jeepney and dream of head room.

This week has been great, we started teaching this lady, and she is super prepared to hear the gospel. She has all of these great questions for us which is really refreshing because most people just want to know how tall I am and if I know any movie stars haha but she asks us things like "where do we go after this life?" and "will you teach me how to pray?" I love it! I will keep you posted as we teach her more.

Oh so here is an adventurous story you should all know... our house is haunted. Like seriously haunted haha Members have told us about times when they would walk past our house and see a little girl in our house haha kind of creepy no? and other missionaries that have stayed there have said they saw her, I haven't seen anything yet but at night I hear stuff all the time. haha What an adventure.

So who all reads this email? I have decided that if you want to read my emails you have to send me an email or letter haha I love hearing from all of you

I also had a nerdy revelation that I would like to share with you, here it goes... imagine if I could meet a vulcan and then mind meld with the said vulcan, he would see how the gospel has blessed my life and feel my testimony of it and then be converted. and then he could mind meld with all the stubborn people here and they would see the truth of this message haha but seeing as that is just science fiction I will just have to keep doing what I am doing haha

I love all of you and I really appreciate the letters (or should I say future letters) haha
I love you thank you for everything, I love this gospel like a fat kid loves cake!
Love Elder Proctor

PS in my area a lot of the people speak ifuegao, there are over 120 dialects in ifuegao alone! I think that the tower of babel was built here haha 

 (A random picture of a jeepney. :))

11-26-11

Well Well Well Lets have a drink :)

So my p day was moved to saturday this week because we had in-field orrentation yesterday haha and it was all day! So thanksgiving in the MTC was pretty cool, Russel M. Nelson spoke and it was awesome. oh and last tuesday D. Todd Christofferson spoke at the devotional so that was pretty neat :) anyway back to thanksgiving, we had that devotional and then a big thanksgiving dinner/lunch and the food was pretty good for cafetira food, nothing like good home cookin but still good, then after that we had a thanksgiving program for us, it reminded me of what I used to do in elementary school haha kind of fun, then we did a service project, we put together some injury kits that are being sent to Sudan and we watched a video on the churches humanitarian efforts, it was really cool to see how things like that can open doors for missionary work :) then we got to watch 17 miracles! it was way cool to watch a movie again haha they had a big bag of kettle corn for each missionary it was great :)

So I leave in 2 days, how neat is that? haha oh mom I got both of the packages you sent, thank you very much. You are the best mom a kid could ask for :) Speaking of those packages, my comp and I and the 2 other elders going to Cauayan went out when it was snowing and we shared that bottle of martinelis hahaha it was good :)

Oh man I am excited to do some real missionary work, I wish I was there now! but I just have to wait I guess. So just to clearify, when I call you from L.A. it will be 5:30 or 6:00 here (dont you love time zones) so just make sure you are there if you want to talk to me, I figure i will just call moms phone :) Its so crazy that I have already been here for 2 months, where did all that time go?

I am so ready for the philippines, I cant wait to see the people and to be able to tell them the best news that they have ever heard! I love this gospel so much, I cant even express my gratitude to this wonderful church. This is the one true church, It has been restored by a prophet called by God. I am so happy and so blessed to know this simple truth. And I am Chompin at the Bits to get to the field and find those who are ready to recieve this glad message. I am not going to give up, and I am going to work my hardest. Because I have seen with my own eyes what this gospel can do for familes and long ago a missionary brought this message to our family, and it has blessed us in countless ways. It would be selfish of me to keep this message to myself, I have to share it to all of those that will hear me.

I love you all so much and I hope I make all of you proud

next time you hear from me, I will be in the Philippines!

love elder Proctor

P.S. Could you tell me the story of how John Proctor first heard about the gospel? and maybe a biography of him? also how many generations ago did he live?

Here is Last Weeks Letter

Hello my Family,

It again sounds like you are all doing great back home, I cant believe all the new stuff that mom and dad have bought, it will be a completely different house when/if I get home haha. 

Oh so mothers day is coming up, and I am going to see if I can Skype! Just for your information, President Carlos says we can have as much time as we want when we Skype so that's pretty awesome! 

So I want to tell you more about my new area, our area is one of the tougher ones, we live about 45minutes away from it so that really cuts into our work time. and its far from the branch meeting house so our investigators dont come to church which stinks, and the people in our area are either super Catholics, inactive Catholics, or Muslims. and we aren't aloud to teach Muslims because here if a Muslim is converted to Christianity they kill the convert and the people that converted them. kinda scary. And these super Catholics just want to bible bash when we talk to them, the more I hear about the Catholic religion the more I see why its so popular, from what they tell me if I want to be saved all I have to do is believe in God, open the bible once and a while and go to mass on Christmas, its a lazy mans church. It also saddens me when these people fight us or tell us to go away, because I know our message is true and I know that it would help them too, but that's agency for you. There was this one lady that really didn't want to hear us, she said "my family is catholic and always has been" I held myself back from tell her how the catholic church came to the Philippines by the Spanish that invaded and conquered the Filipino people then told them what they should believe. I am sorry I don't mean to bash on the Catholics.

But it is still great, the Branch members are so strong, the Branch President is a 26 year old RM and he works with us sometimes, so cool(and he just so happens to be a carpenter)
The people here are part of what is called the Ifuegao tribe and they have there own language with 100's of dialects but luckily most of them speak Tagalog or ilocano as well.

This week our area has been smoky because the ifuegao are having their hunt, and they strategically burn the grass in the mountains to scare all the wild pigs and deer in to a smaller area so they are easier to hunt.
Oh i should tell you about jeepneys! That's what we use to get back and forth from our area. They are these jeeps left over from ww2 turned into something that looks like a bus. Anyway i am to tall to sit inside them so i hang on the back of it, I guess all those times of riding on the tops of vans in high school were just mission prep haha Its also very beautiful here, I love the Philippines, it a good thing I love you all and America more or else I don't think I would be able to leave this place. 

One thing I dont love about the Philippines is the food, I was sick a couple of days last week and I just kept craving American food, I think I will get some McDonalds tomorrow haha all the Americans in my zone go there after district meetings its funny.

Well I love all of you and I know that this work is true (hey that rhymed)
 

Thanks again for all of your love and support,
Elder Proctor

He is at the far end of the first row. :)

Transferred Na Ako

Dear Family,

So yeps I was transferred, I am now in the coldest zone of the mission. Our area is a little town called Lamut, its near Nueva Vizcaya.The Dialect here is ilokano. Its so beautiful here, there are mountains just covered in green and its so nice and cool compared to Tuguegarrao. My new companion is Elder Molino, he is so awesome! He is obedient and loves to work hard. That is also a beautiful thing. The pictures I sent is us in our Natural Habitat at our desks and on the streets.

There are 4 of us in our apartment which is great too because they are also awesome missionaries. One weird thing about my new zone is that there are people that chew this tobacco-like leaf called nga nga. Its red as red and the people that chew it look like vampires, and because its like tobacco they spit it on the ground and it leaves a red mark. There are some streets that are covered with the stuff, its weird.

Yeah we did get to listen to conference, and it was awesome! I loved it. Not much else has happened this week.
 
I love this work, its so fun even when its hard. I love sharing the gospel with people and I also love helping those lost sheep come back.

I am so grateful for this gospel, and for Heavenly Father sending me to the Philippines Cauayan Mission, This is exactly where I need to be right now. I am so grateful for the knowledge that this is the Lords work, and that It doesn't matter how weak I am, because through the Savior I can do anything "For in His strength I can do all things" Alma 26:12 This brings great comfort to me because I am weak I am not perfect but I know that the Atonement make up for everyone of our weaknesses and imperfections. How neat is that!  And why do we have the Atonement? It because our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ Love us, they both love us, they also knew of our weaknesses and they knew that we would not be able to return to Heaven on our own, So Heavenly Father gave his Only Begotten and Jesus gave His life. HOW NEAT IS THAT!
I love all of you, thank you for all of your support and prayers.

Love,
Elder Proctor

Finally Some Pictures

Finally I can catch up on some photos
1. This is Elder M and I at the oh so delicious McDo

2. This is some crazy fruit they have here, it looks like its straight out of star trek

3. This is a Recent convert picking some Mangoes for us

4. This is one of our dinner appointments Kids, he wants to be a missionary real bad

5. This was our last baptism, pretty neat if I do say myself.

6. The cows here are haunted

7. I guess I am pretty handsome.

4-2-12

Hello Gang,
Thats right I called you gang, so its conference there all ready. we
dont get to watch it till next week. And I am super excited for it.
OH Martha! I found the answer to your question without even trying,
its a good story so I thought I would share it with all you.
So Martha's question was, what is the difference between believing in
the name of Jesus Christ and believing ON the name of Jesus Christ.
So to answer this question I am going to tell you a story that I
listened to this week, about this stunt devil back in the 1800's who's
name was "The Great Baunditt" (I know its a awesome name) So this guy
is at Niagara Falls and he says he is going to put a tight rope across
the falls and walk over the Falls on the rope. So he gets the rope up
and he is going to walk across it and by this time everyone and their
dog has heard about it so there is a big crowd there. So he walks
across the rope once and the crowd goes wild, and he says to the crowd
"you came to see a show" so he walks back again. and when he returns
the crowd is just going nuts! so then he says again "you came to see a
show" and he takes his balancing pole and throws it over the falls,
and he says "bring me...The wheel barrow" so some guy goes and grabs
this wheel barrow and gives it to the stunt man. and then the stunt
man says "who believes I can walk across this tight rope with the
wheel barrow?" and the crowd shouts "we believe! we believe!" and then
the Great Baundit says "Thats good... Because I only need ONE
volunteer"...and the crowd goes silent. Then he says the greatest
thing, he says "I thought you said you believed in me"
So going back to the question, the difference between believing in
Jesus Christ and believing on Jesus Christ is action on our part.
We can sit around and say we believe in Jesus Christ but what really
matters is when we act on that belief, when we magnify our callings,
walk out of that movie theater, when we stand up for what we believe
and hop in to the wheel barrow and go across the tight rope. So in
short its ACTION on our part that makes the difference.
Pretty cool story eh. so some more news from me neck of the
woods(thanks Al) this week is transfer week, I wont know until
tomorrow if I am being transferred so I will let you know how that
goes.
Also we had a baptism last Saturday, it was great, her name is Donna
and her sister was just baptized last august and now we are trying to
reactivate their father. Its so wonderful to see these miracles
happening so often. I am so grateful be out here on a mission. I love
all of you and I hope you are doing well
Elder Proctor
PS I might be emailing again later today so hurry and write me eh :)
I love you