Week 31 Gathering in the Rain

This week has been great! 

We had some Mission Zoom meetings that were amazing. My companion had a birthday, and I hit my 7 month mark. It was a packed week.

Highlights:

-It has rained and snowed so much this week, it's not okay (it rained the entire day yesterday then ended with some snow)  meanwhile, Sister Oleson's family in Arizona is "enjoying" 100° weather.

-Since it was Sister Olson's birthday, we had a lot of chocolate... It was awesome, but also, the worst.

-DQ is understanding the Book of Mormon so well. He bore a powerful testimony yesterday about it being the Iron Rod in Lehi's dream. He is amazing!

-We were planning on inviting Barbara to be baptized in yesterday's lesson, but she had read out of the Gospel principles book instead of Come Follow Me. However, by divine intervention, she read the chapters on Faith, Repentance and Baptism in Gospel Principles. Hopefully we will be inviting her to be baptized on Thursday! She has come so far!

-Milton has not received a witness of the Book of Mormon being true, so last night we committed him to take some time to read from it and pray about it and then WHEN he recieves a confirmation that it's true, to let us know so we can help him progress more. He is so good at following what God tells him to and he wants to get an answer that this is true. I have faith that if he reads and prays sincerely, he will receive his answer.

-We found some amazing people this week and had some great impromptu lessons.

-We were also able to do some Family History work this week! I love Family History!

President Nelson said the "gathering [of Israel] is the most important thing taking place on earth today. Nothing else compares in magnitude, nothing else compares in importance, nothing else compares in majesty." 

And we also learn that, "Anytime you do anything that helps anyone—on either side of the veil—take a step toward making covenants with God and receiving their essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel. It is as simple as that." 

This means it's not just the full time missionaries gathering God's children. Any testimony we share, love we show, and Temple and Family History work we do is helping gather His children.

That being said, President Nelson in this April 2020 conference said, "While worshipping in the temple is presently not possible, I invite you to increase your participation in family history, including family history research and indexing. I promise that as you increase your time in temple and family history work, you will increase and improve your ability to hear Him."

I have seen my love and excitement grow while doing family history work. I challenge all of you, as President Nelson did, to work on Family History, and I know that as you all do so, there will be stacks of names of God's children who will be able to receive the ordinances of Salvation when the temples reopen and you will feel their love and appreciation for your diligent work.

Have a wonderful week! Love you all!

Sister Thacker

Pictures:

The weather this week...

It started raining on our walk and we got drenched

some of our meals from this week. Crepes for Sis O's B-Day and hamburgers and potato salad yesterday because we were craving it

Week 30 Hope in Christ

Hello Family and Friends!

This week has gone by so fast.

We have had some great lessons with our friends and not so great lessons. The life of a missionary as usual, haha.

So Barbara is finally understanding the Restoration! We feel that this week, we can invite her to be baptized. She loves the Book of Mormon and now understands the Great Apostasy. It's amazing what free time because of self isolation can do for someone trying to gain a testimony God works in mysterious ways.

We also had a great lesson with DQ! This whole week, we have felt lost on how to help him understand the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. We also had no idea what we were going to teach him yesterday. We had the impression to invite him to read Alma 32, which is about Faith. We had no idea how this lesson was going to go, so when we began the lesson, we asked how his reading went and he said he had a lot of questions and comments. We were so happy! He had so many great questions and he even asked us to share experiences with growing faith before we had shared any personal experiences. He said that he feels he got a lot out of this chapter because he read it with his heart! ♥️ We invited him to begin reading the Book of Mormon on his own and we would talk about the things he was learning. The Spirit was so strong and I know, in time, he will come to know these things are true.

Our district, studied a talk this week called, "Brightness of Hope" by Neal A Maxwell. I wanted to share some quotes from it and a thought from President Vest at our mini mission zoom conference.

"Having ultimate hope does not mean we will always be rescued from proximate problems"

"Sometimes in the deepest darkness there is no external light—only an inner light to guide and to reassure."

President Vest said, "In life, there will be moments you didn't expect or want. What you do with those moments will affect forever."

When we have Hope in Jesus Christ we won't be free from problems. Life is still hard and we are still mortals. However, when we have Hope in Christ, we have an inner light that guides us through the dark trials of life. Hope guides us into the future and eternity.

I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Thacker

It snowed this week...

We got cookies from our mission nurse!

The moment we found out quarantine was extended to May 15th.... 

Not going to put a picture of this, but we did the Census this week! Adulting!

Week 29 Happy Belated Easter

Hello Family and Friends!!!

I cannot tell you how much Joy I feel from our efforts this week. Not only did we find 7 PEOPLE to teach this week, we also celebrated Christ's final week leading up to His Glorious Resurrection. I have read more about the Saviors Atoning Sacrifice and felt more love and peace from it than ever before! I KNOW that my Redeemer LIVES!

This week has been a crazy one, for sure! We met so many great people! It was hard because Milton was only able to meet with us one time this week, but he is doing well and still wanting to meet.
But our other friends are doing great!

We talked about the Priesthood with Barbara and she is understanding it well. Now that she understands how it works, we are going to teach her about the Restoration of the Priesthood this week! Hopefully we will be able to invite her to be baptized. She has been meeting with missionaries for, we think, 10 years... Now is the time for her to make the steps to be able to return home to her Heavenly Father.

DQ is doing well. We are trying to help him see how learning about the Gospel blesses him spiritually and not just intellectually. He loves learning about it though!

We met some interesting people and had some of the best phone calls this week.

We have also been working a lot with Less Active members and that has been awesome! We are constantly helping others come unto Christ.

The spiritual thought this week is about Easter and Jesus Christ's Atoning Sacrifice.
A talk I read this week is by President Boyd K Packer, The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness from October 1995 General Conference.
I highly recommend reading all of it, because it is all amazing and hit me so hard, but I will share a little bit of it.
For everyone who feels that their actions have taken them beyond the forgiveness from the Savior Jesus Christ, and of course for everyone else:
"Save for the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the Atonement of Christ.
....Restoring what you cannot restore, healing the wound you cannot heal, fixing that which you broke and you cannot fix is the very purpose of the Atonement of Christ."
Christ pays the price for all of our mistakes. He can take the guilt, pain, And Eternal consequences away. All He asks is that we repent and follow Him.

I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ!
HAPPY EASTER!!

I love you all,
Sister Thacker

Pictures:

1. Waiting for our friends to join our video call

2. It snowed... In April...

3. Thank you mom for the Easter gifts! (also, we have the cutest nieces and nephew wall)

4. Happy Easter!

5. Our yummy Easter Dinner

6. Self explantory

7. Waiting for another call

8. Our adorable masks, shout out to my cousin Kiersten

9. And finally, the Heavy Duty masks from my neighbor!

Week 28 Happy April

This week has been a crazy one, and I don't even know where to start.

I guess it began on Tuesday, we drove to Syracuse and I picked up my new companion, Sister Oleson! I am the driver, so that's interesting. This was my second time driving in 6 months 

Harold and Melissa dropped us because of a busy schedule these next two months. We think they are avoiding talking about baptism. We had some powerful lessons about it the week before, but I guess they don't want to accept it. It's really sad! I absolutely love them and want them to have the same Joy I feel by making and keeping covenants with God. They said to contact them in June, so hopefully I am still here and I can knock on their door and see what's going on. It was really sad because they didn't even call us back to say goodbye to Sister Barrett. I know the Lord is aware of them.

Barbara is still progressing. We are going to have more lessons with her throughout the week and we know that she will feel the spirit more and understand that she is ready for baptism even if she feels she doesn't know enough. She only watched 1 session of conference, which was disappointing. It was the Saturday evening session, so she got a lot of information about the Priesthood. We are going to clarify that for her in our next lesson. When she understands the Priesthood was restored, she will understand that the authority to baptize is only found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

DQ watched almost all of the sessions except the last one! Which was crazy because that session would have had the most meaning to him when President Nelson announced the temples. He said he is going to watch it, so that's good.

We also found 10 people to teach this week! Not all of them have stayed in contact with us, but we taught and set up return appointments with 10 people!! My companion has never had that in her mission, and neither have I. It's so apparent that the Lord is hastening His work, even while we are in our apt.

Our miracle for the week....

The Carillos family! We called them on Wednesday night at 8:59, right before our night was done. We asked if we could pray with them. The mom was so happy to hear from us and said that she missed us so much! She gathered the family and we said a prayer with them. We set up an appointment to call on Saturday! It was amazing! We were able to do a video call and she said the morning of the day we called, her and her husband were thinking about calling us, but decided not to. It was so amazing to see the Lords hand! They are basically ready to be baptized, we are going to see what happens in their lessons this week and go from there.

This week I have seen so many blessings from being exactly obedient. We found 10 people, first of all. Our friends are progressing, the days have not seemed as long, and we have been able to accomplish everything we need to. I am so grateful for this opportunity God and President Vest have given me to learn from my companion/Sister Training Leader and become to best missionary I can be. I am learning so much about humility. I am learning to be humble enough to accept council, repent and be better each day. It's a work in progress, but I can already see the progress.

Okay, so sorry this is a longer email, but I have to talk about General Conference!!!!! Oh my goodness! It was amazing!! I am so grateful for a living Prophet on the earth. So looking over my notes, I think my favorite one was Elder Hollands about Hope. The main theme of his talk was that, yes these amazing events happened, but that doesn't diminish the future events that will come.

He put himself in the early 19th century and thought about what hopes he would have had regarding religion. He found that all of them were answered by the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Then he went on to talk about what we hope for the future. To paraphrase, our righteous hopes can be fulfilled. Of course it is all in Gods timing and His will. But I know if our will is inline with Gods, our hopes will be fulfilled.

A quote I wrote down, "The future is going to be just as miracle filled as the past."

This includes the miracle that will come as we fast for the global relief of Covid-19. President Nelson issued a worldwide day of fasting and prayer for April 10th. On this day, we will go without food and drink for 2 meals to show our faith and desire for this relief to come. I know that God answers the prayers and pleas of His children and as we participate in this fast as well as invite others to participate, our worldwide faith will bring relief from Covid-19.

I invite you all to join me in this day of fasting and prayer, April 10th. I know miracles will come!

I love you all!

If you are bored, feel free to email me or write me a letter...

Love,

Sister Thacker

Address: 37 uptown rd apt 15B Ithaca, NY 14850

Pictures:

•Conference Crepes

•Our "masks" for grocery shopping today

•My new comp, Sister Oleson

•Now that the parks are closed, no more swings for us

•The invitation from President Nelson

•It's illegal to take a picture of the Coronavirus testing center outside of target, but here is the test site sign

•My comp and I on General Conference day!

Week 27 Trust

This week has been crazy! 

We found out on Tuesday that our bed bug man was coming on Wednesday and we had to leave the apt for 4-6 hours. We called our office couples and asked them where we should go because we are still supposed to be self isolating. Wednesday morning, we frantically moved everything(basically) out of our apt and loaded things into our car. Then we had district council over zoom. He was supposed to come at 12, but he didn't come until 1:15, so we were just sitting, ready to leave and not really able to do anything. We got keys from our office couple and our new bed bug covers.

The exterminator came and he ripped open our box springs and lo and behold, there he found a bed bug. So for those who have been following. We actually did have bed bugs, it wasn't from our neighbors luckily we got them taken care of, hopefully.
We were so privileged because we got to stay in an apt that senior couples used to live in. Oh man, that was beautiful. I'll include pictures. Sadly, it was only for a few hours. We went back to our apt and cleaned and put everything back for good, hopefully.

We had some crazy lessons this week. We are actually teaching Milton and he is asking questions! It's awesome.

Harold and Melissa, we invited to be baptized, and they are still praying about it. We are really trying to help them understand authority. Its rough.

Barbara is progressing! She is loving Come Follow me, and in yesterday's lesson, she said she knows the Book of Mormon is true.

DQ we just finished teaching the Plan of Salavtion. He understands it and says it's really cool. We have a member there who us able to help translate for him.

Finding has been going better this week and we have set up a few return appointments, so that's good. Calling people has been getting better.
It's funny because the days don't feel as long and the past 3 weeks have flown by. We have only been quarantined for 2, but because of bed bugs, it feels like we have been for 3 weeks, lol.

So we got emergency transfer news today as I was writing this email. Even though we had bed bugs, we are still doing transfers.... that's fun. Transfers are tomorrow.

I am staying here in Ithaca and my new comp is Sister Oleson. She was Sister Barretts companion a few transfers ago, so I already know that she is a great missionary!
Sister Barrett is going to Rochester with her MTC companion, so she is pretty excited about that. We are sad we are leaving each other. We thought that we were going to stay companions until next transfer because of the bed bugs.... but surprise!

In other news, I hit my 6 months this past week, so that's cool.
And today we cut my hair. Only like an inch or two, but it was still something.

I am learning that God is really preparing me for a life of change. I hate change, it causes me so much anxiety, but God is helping me rely on him more and more so that when I have crazy circumstances in my life, I will already be willing to have complete trust in Him. I know that everything we go through prepares us for something bigger and better. It's scary, but I remember that Christ knows exactly what I am going through and He loves me so much. He wants to help me and His arms are continually stretched out.

I have a picture hanging up on my wall of Christing hugging a young woman. This picture reminds me of His ultimate love for me.

I love you all!
Sister Thacker

Bed Bug Info

Cute Apartement

 My redecorated wall after bed bugs

District Picture Social Distancing 

Week 26

So this week has been a doozy.

We got a message early in the morning on Tuesday informing us that we would be self isolating in our apartments for the next 2 weeks. We have been doing online and over the phone work and it has been an adjustment. We have seen some miracles! We gave invited 3 of our friends to be baptized. They are currently praying about it to know if it is what they should do. (It is, but they need to know that for themselves).

We have been able to have more members join our lessons because of the convenience of video call lessons. Our friends are progressing!
One of our friends received the Come follow me book and her heart is softening to the gospel and she is more eager to learn the doctrine for her own salvation not just to know what our church is about. It's amazing to see the change!

We have scheduled a few lessons from calling people who have been taught previously! That's so exciting! I know the Lord is blessing us in our efforts.

Some people might be wondering what the missionaries are doing while in isolation. Are we on a break? Are we cleaning? Reading? Sleeping?
All of these would be false! We are keeping our normal hours and we are working just as hard if not harder. If we need breaks from long periods of time calling people, we can take "lightning breaks". That's when we would clean or study something, etc for 20ish minutes.
In addition, we take two, 30 minute walks each day.

This is a hard time. We are trying to figure out how to be missionaires while not doing completely normal missionary activities.

These thoughts helped me recognize something from my studies this morning.
I am reading through the Book of Mormon and right now I am in Ether. Today I read chapter 2.
This is when the Brother of Jared is asking the Lord how they are going to make it across the ocean in these big barges. He asks how they are going to breathe and how they are going to have light. The Lord told him what to do for the air problem. But when he asked about the light problem, the Lord asked the Brother of Jared what he thought they should do. The Brother of Jared preceded to go work. He molted out of rock, 16 stones for the Lord to touch and cause to shine. God knows all, He can do anything, we now know there are quicker things that God could have given him. He could have given him solar panels, light bulbs, batteries, etc. But if God have given him all the answers, the Brother of Jared would not have worked as hard as he did and learned to trust in God even more.

Sometimes when we find ourselves in situations where we have no idea what to do, God will get us started, but then He will let us do the rest. He does this to help us grow and learn to rely on Him. He will not leave us alone in the process, but we will have to do our share of the work.
In this difficult situation, God provided us missionaires a list from our leaders of things we can do to continue sharing the Gospel. But how to implement them in each of our missions and areas, we have to figure out ourselves. As we are obedient to the things already given us, and strive to add onto them, God will consecrate our efforts and make them more than anything we imagined.

This applies to everyone, this is a difficult situation and we may not know what to do. I promise as you are obedient to the things you already know, follow the commandments and listen to your leaders (the prophet, apostles, general authorities, and local leaders). You will blessed with direction on what to do. Then, as you have drawn yourself closer to God and Christ, you are open and WILLING to listen to the Holy Ghost and you will know what you need to do during this time.

I love you all and hope you stay happy and healthy!
Love Sister Thacker

Also because of small businesses shutting down, we won't be getting a exterminator to come check and treat for bed bugs.
Oh yeah, and we might of not even had bed bugs in the first place.
Living out of trash bags for nothing

I also will hit my 6 months this week on the 25th

Pictures:

1. This was Sister Barrett on day 2....

2. We finished a puzzle this week, it took us 2 days thank you mom!

3&4&5. We took pictures cause I looked good

6. We still got to go to the store today, it was just entirely empty.