Week 69 - Miracles!

This week has been good. Missions are hard. There are so many rewards and blessings from serving. One of which is growth through the hard times. I have made the goal to turn to God in prayer in those hard moments. It's amazing seeing people grow, and find those elect people. Sometimes those inbetween moments can be hard.

We taught some of our friends the Law of Chastity and it went super well!! Pray for Garth and Stephanie that they will receive answers to their prayers.

We met an amazing woman named Jennifer doing something we call, Double beef burger. This is where we change the last 4 numbers to be the same 2 numbers in the middle and the same 2 numbers on the ends. She was so interested in hearing more of our message! The next time we called, she picked up almost immediately. We dropped off a Book of Mormon to her today!

We also had a miracle from our Facebook ad! She is super interested in the Book of Mormon! We gave her the number for the Elders in her area and she said she would give them a call this morning!

We did a live event last night on our Facebook page - Church of Jesus Christ in Eastern New York. Please go watch it! It was actually really good

My Spiritual thought is a recap on the Restoration Proclamation! We had a lesson with Peter about it and he felt the Spirit so strongly from it! The Restoration Proclamation is true! Please re-read it and pray to know if it is true!

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic Valentine's day and that you all eat lots of chocolate

Have a great week! Talk to you on next Tuesday because of Zone conference.

Love, Sister Thacker

Pictures

My companions and I next to Robert Frosts grave

Sister Godfrey looking like Eep from The Croods

My comps being dramatic in the snow

Week 68 -11° and we still went out 😄

You heard that right, it was -11 degrees on Saturday morning. So for exercise, we decided to walk to the Bennington monument at 7am. It was so fun!! (You Rafeel me?) We were FREEZING! We all had icicles for eyelashes and frost on our hats from breathing. (Pictures will be included)

We had some great miracles this week! Do ya'll remember Peter from my first transfer in Bennington? Well, he said he was ready to meet with us again!!! (He was starting his own business, so he got really busy) He also came to church!!! He is going to work towards baptism and do all he can to learn about the Gospel. He is so tender!!!

Our other friends are doing great! They are all progressing well and loving the gospel!

This week we had a training from President Vest about the talk by President Oaks, "Be of Good Cheer"

He gave us 6 steps to help us Be of Good Cheer:

1. Trust God, He is all powerful

2. Embrace opposition to become like Christ

3. Choose to act, not to be acted upon

4. Stop Whining

5. Take care of your body and mind

6. Turn to Christ for strength

These apply to everyone in all circumstances! I need to apply them more, and I am working on it. I invite you all to consider what you can do that will help you Be of Good Cheer in all circumstances.

I love you all so much!

Have the best week!

Also, we are doing a live event this Sunday at 7pm on the page, Church of Jesus Christ in Eastern New York, please join!

https://www.facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChristaroundAlbany/

Sister Thacker

Pictures

 The Sunrise

 Me and my cute companions 

 Our morning walk to the monument

The cold made my breath freeze in my hair 

 -11°

Our cuteness again in the freezing cold

Week 67 Transfers!!!

 Hello! This week was transfers. I don't know what transfer I am on, but today is my 16 month mark being a missionary.

So.... *drumroll* I stayed in Bennington!! Sister Larsen got transferred to Delhi, which is hilarious because they are our tech specialists, so we talk to them a lot.

I got 2 Companions! Sister Sanders and Sister Godfrey. Sister Sanders was actually my sister training leader when I was in Plattsburgh AND we went to high school together AND I had her dad for seminary! It's awesome

Sister Godfrey is great too I love them both.

Transfers are always an adjustment though. 

We still have 5 friends on date and have some really great friends progressing.

We are teaching a woman named Catherine! She is so humble and soooo elect! She loves President Nelson and she is waiting for her Book of Mormon in the mail, so pray that comes to her quick.

We had 5 people come to or watch church! It's amazing! I also gave a talk, and that went super well

Its been really, really cold here, but the snow has been gorgeous!

My Spiritual thought is from my talk which I based off of President Nelson's article in the Jan 2021 Liahona magazine.

President Nelson talks about the pattern for receiving revelation, but he shares this beautiful quote:

"If something is stopping us from opening the door to heavenly direction, we may need to repent. Repentance allows us to open the door so we can hear the voice of the Lord more frequently and clearly.

 “The standard is clear,” taught Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “If something we think, see, hear, or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing. If that which is intended to entertain, for example, alienates us from the Holy Spirit, then certainly that type of entertainment is not for us. Because the Spirit cannot abide that which is vulgar, crude, or immodest, then clearly such things are not for us.”"

I really liked this quote. I know, sometimes we wonder why we aren't recieving answers and we should take a look inward at anything that may be keeping you from receiving revelation through the Holy Spirit.

That's about it for this week! I have some pictures this week.

Love,

Sister Thacker

Pictures

Sister Larsen and I saying goodbye, it was freezing!!

A small stop sign

Gorgeous drive to transfers through the Adirondacks

My cute new companions

Week 68 Weekly Email...

Hello! Another week has come and gone... transfers are this week, so stay tuned next Monday to hear the news.

2 transfers remain

This week we put 3 people on date for baptism!! Kelly, Garth and Stephanie.

Kelly is adorable. We had a lesson with her Monday night and we finished teaching her the Plan of Salvation. When we talked about the Celestial kingdom, she said she wants to live there. So we felt prompted to ask her if she knew the Book of Mormon was true. She said yes. Then we said, if the BoM is true, then that means this is Jesus Christ's true church on the earth today. She said, yeah, that makes sense! So we invited her to be baptized and then we invited her to pray about it right then. She said a beautiful closing prayer and in the middle of it, after she had asked the question, she said, "I think we already know the answer to that one." Then she got teary-eyed and said, "I think this is what God wants me to do!" She is so sweet and is really excited about baptism! We put her on date for March 13th!!!

We also officially put Garth and Stephanie on date. We taught them the Restoration and Stephanie loved it! She said she is ready to give her life to God! We also sent her the 20 minute first vision video and she said it was very moving. They are amazing!

We tried a new finding method. Basically we just pick a number in our area, for example (802) 733- then we just start at 0000 and go up from there... now this area is very rural. So 68 of the 69 calls we made during that half an hour were disconnected... it was a little mind numbing. The next day that we did it, we started at a higher number and we have talked to a lot more people, or rather left voicemails instead of calling and hearing *beep beep beep* or "the number you dialed is not in service". So that was nice to do something new.

That's the major stuff from this week.

Love,

Sister Thacker

Week 67 Hello again🖐

I have officially passed 100 days left... craziness!

Huge miracle this week! We were going to teach our friend Garth about baptism, so we call him and his girlfriend Stephanie wanted to join in as well!! So we got a new friend and invited 2 people to be baptized in one lesson!! They are amazing!! Stephanie loves the feeling of church and the wonderful community that we have  they also came to church on Sunday!

Our returning member Chris came to church again! And the members talked to him so much again, it was awesome

We had a good week and were able to tell people about the Book of Mormon and they are going to check it out! One man is getting one in the mail!

Spiritual thought for this week from an article in the Ensign of Feb 1984 by Elder Holland, "The Inconvenient Messiah"

"Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do His work if you carry them well."

I love you all

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Thacker

A gorgeous sunrise from the other day

We also made bacon-wrapped little smokies🥓

bunny tracks in the cemetery

Week 66 2020 is Finally Over

Happy New Years everyone! I hope you all had a safe and fun holiday!

Some exciting things from this week:

- We talked to Peter again and dropped off some children's Book of Mormons for his kids. He said he will let us know when he is available to have lessons again! Keep praying for Peter.

- We had our district P-day last week. We played foursquare at a park. It was nice to be outside.

- We talked with an inactive member and invited him to come back to church. HE CAME YESTERDAY!!! He was welcomed by the Branch and he said he is excited to come back next week.

That's about it for this week... We did a lot of finding and worked hard. We are going to take a nap today and we are so excited!

My spiritual thought for all of you is to read the talk by Matthew Holland from this last general conference called, "The Exquisite gift of the Son of God". Its really, really good.

I love you all and I hope you have a great first week of 2021!

Sister Thacker

Sorry, we didn't take very many pictures this week that I felt like sharing... more to come next week, I promise!

Week 65 "I was dreaming of a white Christmas"

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!!

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day calling people (those we know and random numbers) and singing Christmas Hymns! We had a lot of fun!

We talked to some fun people this week and even found a new friend! We also put our friend Tracey on date!

It's been a harder week, for a number of reasons, but I have been learning patience, charity and endurance from these struggles.

I know Jesus Christ knows exactly how I feel and I can turn to Him and rely on His grace and mercy. We can't be perfect in this life but we can only become better each day. And even then, we fall short. Only through the Grace of Christ can we return to Heavenly Father, on conditions of faith and repentance. Christ can work with even a desire to change and become better.

I love you all!

And I can officially say, I will see you next year! (3.5 months left)

Sister Thacker

Pictures

Our homemade Apple pie

Our failed monkey bread (we had instant pudding, not cook and serve)

Gingerbread house

Our "white Christmas" the whole 1.5 feet of snow melted...

Yummy Christmas dinner

My cute family on Christmas!