Week 35 The Longest Week of My Life

This week was hard

We have a friend who us struggling to understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ and its very frustrating trying to help her understand that He can take all of our pains and sorrows.

We had a great lesson with our friend David last night. We had his long lost cousin (who is a member) join us. She is awesome!

We had a few meetings... And...

We made some yummy food

(also, muddy buddies) 

We also watched Sister Williamsons brother graduated from High school, so we watched his drive through graduation...  It was cute.

Okay kow for the best thing that happened this week... 

Drumroll.....

WE FINALLY GOT TO TAKE THE SACRAMENT!!!!!

We went to the Branch Presidents house for that and it was amazing!! They also gave us sack lunches and lilacs️

That was an amazing experience. We could feel the difference and the stregnth that it brings as we are remembering our Savior Jesus Christ's Sacrifice. It was beautiful. The perfect ending to a hard week.

Also, they have a cute dog names Luna, pictures to come next week(hopefully). 

And I forgot how much I love dogs

The drive to President Brandts home was gorgeous

Have a great week!! Love you all

Sister Thacker

Week 34 Careful vs Casual

Hey family and friends! It's been an interesting/crazy week.

So first of all, we had stacked lessons and meetings the first few days and I was exhausted. THEN, on Wednesday we got transfer calls and I found out I would be going to Plattsburgh!!!

For those of you who don't know, Plattsburgh is at the very tippy top of the mission and at the very east. We border Canada and Vermont. It was a 4 hour drive there and I was even more exhausted

This is also where my trainer, Sister Geddes went after she left me.

My companion is Sister Williamson who was companions with Sister Geddes for 3 transfers! I am so excited to be serving here, and my companion is so great, I already love her so much!

I do miss Ithaca, Sister Oleson and Sister Tolman, and our friends there. But new adventures are good and....

WE HAVE A CHICK-FIL-A IN PLATTSBURGH!!!!

I was so happy to get some today

We are teaching some wonderful people:

We have Braden, who is just waiting for the go ahead on baptisms so he can be baptized.

David, who was just barely put on date for baptism and he is so sweet!

He knows that this what God wants him to do. And he also found out that he has a cousin who is a member and her husband is a mission president!

We also have Carlos who loves singing, and we sing a hymn with him to end every lesson. Its really great.

We have some other friends, but those are the main ones.

We take our walks in a cemetery

My spiritual thought comes from the talk, Careful VS Casual by Beck Craven:

This talk has been a main focal point of our mission and it will be something that I repeatedly look back on and read throughout my life. Here is a quote that I am still working on applying into my life, but I thought I would share it.

"Anytime we say, “however,” “except,” or “but” when it applies to following the counsel of our prophet leaders or living the gospel carefully, we are in fact saying, “That counsel does not apply to me.” We can rationalize all we want, but the fact is, there is not a right way to do the wrong thing!"

Obviously, we will not be perfect. 

She later says,"It’s impossible to live a perfect life. Only one man was able to live perfectly while dwelling on this telestial planet. That was Jesus Christ. Although we may not be perfect, brothers and sisters, we can be worthy: worthy to partake of the sacrament, worthy of temple blessings, and worthy to receive personal revelation."

Love you all!!

Sister Thacker

Pictures:

Me and my cute apt

Me and my cute comp in the cemetery

Pouring down rain

My district from last transfer

Amish country

CHICK-FIL-A!!!

Week 33 The Trio Life

This has been a great week!

We have had lots of lessons and lots of zoom meetings. Its been great!

For mothers day, as we were taking our walk, a dad and young man from our ward pulled up next to us and they gave us flowers and chocolates, that was great! We also got to talk to our moms yesterday!!

We called a lot of people this week who are so ready to accept the gospel!

I cut Sister Tolmans hair this morning and that was fun! Probably like 8 inches were cut off!

I don't really know what else happened this week, haha. Sorry!

Spiritual thought from this week is from President Uchtdorfs talk, A Matter of a Few Degrees, "Remember: the heavens will not be filled with those who never made mistakes but with those who recognized that they were off course and who corrected their ways to get back in the light of gospel truth."

We are not going to be perfect, but we can constantly keep striving.

Love you all!

Sister Thacker

Photos

Hair cut

Mothers day gifts

It snowed this week...in May

Week 32 I'm in a Trio!!

This has been a crazy week. The beginning was good, but was kind of dragging on because we were getting to the end of the calling we had been doing and we were getting into more tedious online finding.

Then on Thursday morning we got a call from our mission president saying that we needed to pick up a sister missionary who's companion was done with her mission. We drove to a church nearby and picked her up and now we are a trio.

The new Sister in Ithaca is... Drumroll.... 

SISTER TOLMAN!!! MY MTC COMPANION!!! I am so happy. Sister Oleson, Sister Tolman, and I are having so much fun! 

So along with gaining a new companion, we gained 2 new areas... Because they were covering an area called Horseheads and also Johnson City. So we are now working with 5 units (wards or branches/congregations) and we have so many lessons. Our days are packed! We had 10 lessons scheduled for yesterday, not all of them went through, but still.

The best part of this week was that we have been helping so many of our friends with their family history and it is so cool! We helped a recent convert find some information on her great grandma and after she found some information, a green temple icon showed up and for those of you who don't know, that means that person is ready to be taken to the temple to get their ordinances done!! It was such an amazing feeling that came when we saw that.

So an update on the Ithaca Friends, DQ and Milton are both taking a break from meeting with us because they are going to take time to read the Book of Mormon. And Barbara is working towards baptism!!

We had some beautiful sunny days and it's gorgeous here.

We have so much food because we combined apartments basically and we have the food storage of 5 people too (because of missionaires going home).

That's basically our week.

Spiritual thought: see my last email, I am continuing to invite you to work on family history. It amazing and so easy!

Love you all!

Sister Thacker

Pictures:

Lots of pictures of us 3 on the beautiful days

We got some food from a member we were so happy!!