July 23, 2012

Hello all, 

This week was great! We had our Zone conference with Elder Teh.  It was great. We learned a lot from him and his wife on how to become better missionaries.

 

And after the conference Brother Pete cooked some amazing mashed potatoes and chicken. It was wonderful. After we ate we sang a thank you song to him and it made that old sea dog start to tear up. The guy loves the missionaries. He is so great.

 

Also this week, all of the elders in my district went to one ward and we taught the ward about effective teaching and then we went out and visited less active families. This one guy that my companion and I visited was a really cool experience.  We showed up at the door and he came out and was mad at us, telling us that he didn't have time for us and that he didn't have time for church. 

 

We just told him that we would like to share a verse from the Book of Mormon with him and he calmed down a bit and let us in, we shared 1Nephi 1:1 with him, and said that because of Nephis "goodly parents" he was taught to live righteously and did so. Then he opened up to us and told us about how he has these 2 grand kids whose mom had passed away and dad had left them.  He takes care of them and is doing everything he can for them, he told us the only thing he wants is for them to be brought up in a good home, and he said that his home would be better if they went to church more. It was great, the power of the Book of Mormon is amazing. 

 

As we left he asked us if he could order the Liahona again, so that he could share the stories in there with his grand kids.

 

And that's the beauty of missionary work. Inviting others to come to Christ.

 

I love all of you and I hope you all have another great week

 

Love,

Elder Proctor

July 16, 2012

Hello All,

 

So this Wednesday we are starting our fast and going to sleep at 6pm because we have to wake up at 2am Thursday morning to head to Tuguegarao and be there by 7am for our meeting with Elder Teh! I am excited! And to top it off Brother Pete is cooking for us. He is that navy vet that used to be a cook on a ship.

 

And today we got some more exciting news, In August Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve will be visiting our mission! How neat is that! 

 

Here is an update on that dad I have been telling you about.  Every time we go to visit him, he is either reading from the Book of Mormon, Teachings of George Albert Smith, or the Priesthood manual. I guess if he is going to come back to activity he is coming back running haha.

Its good to hear that you are all doing well, and that Grandmas surgery went well, tell her that I love her. I love all of you, I love this gospel.  I love missionary work, but I don't love typing haha. But don't worry I will have plenty of stories when/if I come home. 

 

Love,

 

Elder Proctor

7-1-12

I don't have a lot of time, I am still in the same area with the same companion and the other 2 Elders stayed as well. I love all of you so much, I will try to tell you more next week.

June 25, 2012

Well How the Heck are ya?

I am doing great. This week is transfer week.  We will find out tomorrow who is getting transferred, so that's kind of exciting.

I want to tell you about this family we are teaching.  The Dad is the only member and he was less-active but he is coming back now, and he is bringing his 2 sons and his daughter. Our goal is to keep teaching the kids and Mom and then have the Dad baptize them all! We were over at their house yesterday and we were teaching about the Restoration of The Gospel, it was so great.   They were asking good questions and through the spirit we were able to answer them. After the lesson we gave them a copy of The Book of Mormon. The Dad got all excited and said to his kids that they were going to read it together. Then he kept saying, "A family that reads and prays together, STAYS together!" It was so awesome.  I love seeing the gospel give people the help that they need. The great thing about that is that EVERYONE needs the gospel and that it is the answer to all the problems and questions in the world!

I love it.

Now to answer moms questions, to stay cooled off is not that hard we just use electric fans.  When we are out walking in the sun there isn't anything that we can do so we just sweat.  haha The cool thing that I have noticed is that as long as I am in my white shirt and tie, that I don't get sunburned but if we have an activity on p-day, then I get fried! haha

I do email Reeve every now and then.  I don't want you to forward me his letters.

I love all of you and I love being a missionary,

Elder Proctor 

6-18-12

Happy Fathers day!

Sorry I didn't get you anything Dad, kinda far.

This week has been great, mom to answer your question about the language yes I dream in Tagalog, I am doing okay with the language I plan to be learning the language the whole time I am here.

That is so cool that Josh is heading to the MTC he will do great!

This is going to be kind of short, We got an appointment to keep.

I love all of you, I love this work

Love Elder Proctor

 (random picture from Jared's mission president's blog. :))

June 11, 2012

Hello,

Mom first off to answer your questions.. It is hot! always unless its raining, then its freezing, and right now is the rainy season and will be till about October. We don't have bikes, I wish we did though, we could double our teaching appointments, as for food in our apartments its usually just rice and tuna haha full of nutrients.  But earlier today I cooked those no bake cookies and they are delicious.  Thanks again for sending the recipe.

For my birthday I would like this book, i think its called Missionary Inspirational Stories or something like that.

This week has been a good one, we had a combined Zone Conference which was really good, I learned a lot and got to see buddies from my old zones.

Another cool thing about this week is that one of our investigators that has wanted to be baptized for a long time but didn't want to get married to her boyfriend or leave him, has finally started to work out the papers they need to make there marriage official. That is one thing that I really don't get about the Philippines, people will tell you they have a husband or wife but then they tell you they aren't married. 

Anywho, this morning we helped these members plant mango trees this morning, which was super cool because they are a returned less active family, when I first came to this ward the dad was always drinking coffee and beer and the family was always getting in arguments but now the dad has kicked the beer and coffee and they have all talked to the bishop and are having a family prayer every night and they have a goal to go to the temple this October! I love seeing this change for better in people, I just love missionary work.

I was thinking the other night about how I am here in the Philippines, and I said to myself "Hey skitch, how did we get here?" and I thought about my life and the things that led me to serve a mission, and then about our family history and how we got the gospel, then into church history and I realized that I am here because a 14 year old boy sincerely wanted to know the truth! Talk about a marvelous work and a wonder. I love you all, I am so grateful to have a testimony of the restored gospel and to have such an amazing family! 

Love,

Elder Proctor

6-4-12

Hello Family,

So this week has gone by faster then the rest, it just keeps going faster and faster. Some of the challenges that we are facing in this area is that Tagalog is a 2nd or 3rd language here, so we have to keep our Tagalog as simple as possible and we are picking up some Ebanag and more Ilocano. Another thing that all of the people we are teaching (less-active or investigator) are just not keeping their commitments.   They keep telling us that they will do these things but then they don't even try. It drives me a little nuts sometimes but that's okay. They have their agency.

As far as cool stories go, we are teaching this one less active family that are really coming back strong! A couple of weeks ago the dad was drinking everyday but now they are all coming to church.  The dad has stopped drinking and has talked to the Bishop. In all of our lessons with them we focus of Eternal Families and the Temple, those are my favorite things to teach because of the great family I have.

Oh get this I found Root Beer here! Halleluiah!

That's it folks, I love you all so much thanks for all that you do,

Elder Proctor