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

3-26-12

Hey Y'all,

Mom yes there are Senior couples here.  I want to say 4,  not counting President and Sister Carlos.

So this week has been another week of missionary work, lots of teaching, even more learning. I love it. The other day we were at Jollibee (Filipino burger joint) and it was pretty crowded and I saw that I towered over all these people and it reminded me of Avatar, whenever it shows the blue aliens compared to the humans.   haha   Yeah I feel like an alien, but that's all right by me.   I know that half way around the world I fit in haha.

So as you know we are focusing on reactivating the less active members here. Me and my companion are focusing on these 5 families in our ward, while we are also trying to retain our recent converts and trying to teach our investigators while also trying to find new investigators. Sometimes it can get overwhelming but then I remember that this is the Lord's work not mine.  I just have to do the best that I can everyday, so that is what I am doing, giving my all everyday. Earlier this week I was studying Diligence (a Christ-like attribute) in Preach My Gospel and it says that a missionary's effort reflects their love for the Savior. I love my Savior, therefore I will work hard! 

I love my mission, I love the people. I can really see Heavenly Fathers love for all of us. Just look at the world! It is so beautiful! He made it that way because he loves us. And look at the gospel! He has given us everything that we could ever need and more! HOW NEAT IS THAT!
Oh I do love this gospel and I am so very grateful that all of us know of it.  I cant understand how everyone else goes on without it.

I love all of you so much, and I thank you for your weekly emails, they are so great and uplifting.

Elder Proctor 

PS I would absolutely love it if you would send me this book of missionary Inspirational stories(Curtis will know), but I wont be too disappointed if you don't send it.

PSS I ate papaya for the first time, it has the texture of squash and the flavor of mango mmm delicious

3-18-12

Greetings Loved Ones,

   So how y'all doin? As I was reading Dads email about buying the used candy machines from Aliens in Roswell, I thought that exact thing happened in Twilight Zone. haha

 

So it sounds like you are all doing well, which is wonderful to hear, I am also glad to hear that little Ella is smiling again, those pictures of her in the hospital got me pretty worried but now everything is okay.

 

  So this week I talked to my first English speaking non-member! It was kind hard trying to talk in English but I some how managed haha He was very nice and not too interested but that's okay because he has his agency.

 

I also started teaching the Gospel Principles class in our ward! haha its kind of funny how it falls to me, First the bishop assigns a teacher, then the teacher doesn't prepare so then he goes to us haha the Missionaries! but I cant complain, I love teaching because I learn as I teach and I love learning! haha don't tell Mom I said that haha not a whole lot else happened this week. Its getting hotter here every day haha but there is something interesting that I have noticed, even though its blazing hot, as long as we are walking, I don't get sun burnt! haha I think that is a blessing from hard work. And I love hard work! haha don't tell Dad I said that haha 

OH there is something wonderful that I learned from a more experienced missionary! His Mom sent him homemade cookies, she put them in a Ziploc bag and then into a Tupperware container and he said when he ate them they were still soft! So if you all are just chomping at the bits to send me some cookies feel free to do so! haha 

 

I am still loving it out here, even though I struggle with the language I love it. I know have a better insight why we have trials here, its for our growth, and that's why we came here, that is what we fought for in heaven. And I can honestly say that every trial I have had before and during my mission, has drawn me closer to Jesus Christ. and because of that I can honestly say that I am grateful for trials. and I know that no matter what happens, Our Savior is there to pick us up and help us through. I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his Gospel. 

 

I love all of you so so so Much, you might say that I love you more than 4 ;)

 

Thanks for your support,

Elder Proctor

 

PS and I would like to thank you in advance for the cookies haha 

3-12-12

 (Jared's Zone.  He is the tall one in the back.)

How y'all doing!
No pictures again this week, still in the crap computer shop but don't worry, they will come haha so this week has been pretty good. One of our recent converts was telling her friend about how we give priesthood blessings and her friends grandpa was in the hospital and she asked us to come and give him a blessing. When we walked into the hospital room, I saw this 98 year old man lying down, he looked so weak and frail. Some of his children were there in the room and they were telling us about this 98 year old man. They told me about how he had helped the Americans fight the Japanese in WW2. As we sat there listening to stories about this man, I had this feeling come over me and I realized that this man was close to death, and he was close to returning to seeing our Savior. The spirit was overwhelming and the more I thought about it the more I realized how blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives and to know that Heavenly Father has a plan for us. Then we offered a simple blessing to this frail man and then we asked his daughter if we could stop by and share a message with them, and she readily accepted it. It was quite the experience.
Well I have to run off to an interview so I cant write anymore,
I love all of you and hope you are doing well
thanks for the love and support.
Elder Proctor

3-5-12

Dear Family,
So this week I kept a list of things to write so I wouldn't forget once I sat down at the computer.   No pictures this week because we are in that crap computer shop and I don't want to risk loosing all of my pictures again.
So for this weeks adventure, we had a brown out (black out) there was no electricity and so that meant that the fans didn't work. And it just happened to be a really hot day so that was just awesome. And the running water that we have in our house comes from an electric pump well, so we didn't have any water to bathe! Needless to say we smelt pretty bad haha Then we noticed that the chapel next door to us had a water storage tank, so we filled up a couple of buckets and took them back to our apartment so we could get clean, it was pretty fun.
Another cool thing that happened this week, we were on our way home riding in a tri-cy and I started talking to the driver, turns out he is the pilot of this huge cargo vessel and he just drives a tri-cy to stay busy when he comes home, I asked him how long he is away from home when he is on the vessel and he said from one to three years, and as soon as he told me that the spirit told me to give this man a Book of Mormon, at first I hesitated and thought to myself that it wasn't a big deal, then the spirit told me again give this man a Book of Mormon! I then realized what I had to do, I didn't have a copy in my bag so when we got home I told my comp to pay for the ride and I ran inside and grabbed a Book of Mormon and ran back and gave it to him and told him a little about it and our church. He then thanked me for the book and said he would read it on his long journey, then he drove off and I felt great!
Also this week we had Elder Nielson, of the area 70 come and speak to us, it was really great he had some great insights on how to help less active members come back. Then at the end he let us ask him questions about anything, and this one elder asked how the prophets security guards are selected, he told us some great stories and showed us that everyday he gets a security update on his phone and it tells him places that he needs to avoid and stuff like that, how neat is that!
Another awesome thing that happened this week was the 3 less active families that we have been working with came to church! it was so great to be there greeting people at the church and then see these families come oh it was so great.
Well that's about it from this week :) pretty neat if I do say so myself. It sounds like you all have had a good time, I hope you sick people stop being sick!
I know I say this a lot but that is just because I mean it, I love you all and I love missionary work. It is so great, but its so fast! I cant believe how fast it is going! its crazy. It just goes to show you that this work is true, I love this gospel so much, I am so grateful for our savior Jesus Christ, I am so grateful for my mission and the opportunity it gives me to learn and grow into the man that Heavenly Father wants me to be.
Thanks for all your love and support
Elder Proctor
Ps could you send me a copy of my priesthood line of authority?
pps do we have any relatives that served in North Carolina? there is an elder in my mission who's grandparents were baptized by an Elder Proctor! wow neat