Week 44 We Have a Pet

So first things first, we have a massive pet spider in our window. His name is Jeffrey and we just found his son yesterday, and his name is Jeffery Jr. and we are pretty sure there is a third one somewhere. We bought some raid at the store, so we will be sending them to heaven soon.

We had an interesting week, we are now in Phase 1 as missionaries! We can now have in person lessons with the people we are teaching, and in person District Council. We also have in person interviews with President Vest this week!

We have some great friends! Braden came to church on Sunday! We had a lesson with our friend Carl and with President Brandt. We read from the Book of Mormon and then we had to go after 20 minutes, so we suggested that they could continue talking. They did for another 20 minutes and they both loved it! President Brandt was impressed with his desire to learn!

My spiritual thought this week comes from my district leader, Elder Jensen. 

He said something to the effect of,

We have the answer to eternal life and it would be selfish to keep it to ourselves. We can be out of our comfort zone and away from our families for 18-24 months of our lives to help people be together for eternity.

I know I have heard that before, but for some reason it just seemed to click this time.

Have a great week! Happy August on Saturday

Love Sister Thacker

A picture of Sister Gardner and I

Our friend Jeffery and Jeffery Jr.

Week 43 Quite the Week

The first thing that happened this week was that we actually had a refferal who actually wanted to meet!! She requested a Book of Mormon, and we had our first meeting with her on Tuesday over Facebook messenger. Her name is Anna, and while we were meeting with her, her son, Carl was there and he was also interested! Carl came to church too! It's amazing how God leads the elect to you. 

Church was stressful because 2 of our friends came, but it was great! Also, Sister Gardner gave a talk in church about the Book of Mormon she did great!

We had a great lesson with our friend Carlos about the talk "What Lack I Yet?" with the Branch President there, it was awesome!

Other than that, not much happened, but its been a long, stressful week.

I love you all, hope you have an amazing week!!! 

Sister Thacker

Pictures

We went to a place to see Lake Champlain

A fresh grave in the cemetery we walk through

Sister Gardner and I on Tuesday night

Week 42 Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit

There are only a few major things that happened this week.

The first is that our baptism didn't go through... He wanted to wait until after the Pandemic... We are working with him still and he still knows this is Christs church, he is just nervous. There might be something bigger too, and we are going to do everything in our power to help him feel ready for baptism. (he was supposed to get baptized in April, but no baptisms were happening then, he is more than ready) but we love him and will do anything to help him.

Please pray for Braden!

The second major thing is that we went to..... IN PERSON CHURCH!!!!! Yes, thats right, we had in person church for the first time in 4 months it was really nice. As missionaries, church is normally very stressful, it is almost never a relaxing, spiritual experience, but yesterday, we had only 20 people there and (sadly) none of our friends were there, so we had a really calm sacrament meeting. Also with COVID, it was nice to just get in and get out.

That was the best part of our Sunday, now for the worst part of our Sunday... 

We walked out of our apartment to drive to church and there was a massive dent in our drivers side bumper of our car... Yes that's right, our car, which hasn't moved since Monday, was involved in an accident. AND there was not a note! We have no idea who hit our car...so frustrating. Luckily it was drivable, so we went to church and came back home and called the mission office. It wasn't our fault, so thats good!

My spiritual thought comes from our mission discussion on Thursday. We talked about Humility, and specifically the sacrifice that is required to access the Atoning power of Jesus Christ. President Vest pointed out the connection between offering animal sacrifices on an alter before Christ became that sacrifice for all of us and our sacrifice today. In order to access Christs Atonement, we need to "offer for a sacrifice unto me(Christ) a broken heart and a contrite spirit" (3 Nephi 9:20)

President Vest invited us to put something on the alter (figuratively) to increase our Humility. It was an amazing experience to feel the peace that came as I prayed and offered up my "sacrifice" to Christ to be a more dedicated disciple and missionary.

I invite all of you to prayerfully ask God what you should "put on the alter" to become a more dedicated disciple of Christ. A talk that might help you gain more of an understanding of this is by Larry R Lawrence, "What lack I yet?" from the Oct 2015 conference.

I love you all!!

Sister Thacker

Pictures

The car... 

The mission had pizza delivered to all of our apartments! 

Church!!

Week 41 Happy July!!

Hello Family and Friends!

This week has been great! We have a few new people to teach, so that is exciting! We shares a very powerful Restoration with a woman and she is very interested in reading the Book of Mormon.

We had a missionwide discussion about Humility this week and it was really good. I have been praying about what specifically I need to do to be more humble. One way that I felt would help me is to be more forgiving and ask for forgivness from others.

I invite all of you to think about how you can be more humble and teachable to be ready to accept the will of the Lord.

This is a quote from a conference talk called, "Forgiveness will change Bitterness to Love":

"When we forgive others, it frees us to choose how we will live our own lives. Forgiveness means that problems of the past no longer dictate our destinies, and we can focus on the future with God’s love in our hearts." 

I love you all so much!

Have a great week! 

Sister Thacker

It was July 4th so, naturally we had to take pictures. Thanks mom for the package!

Week 40 Baptism!!!!!

First of all, we got transfer calls last Monday afternoon, so... I have a new companion! No, I didn't get moved. I am still here in beautiful Plattsburgh. On Tuesday, Sister Williamson and I had to drive to Liverpool to get new companions, we had to be there by 5 pm, so Sister Williamson took the whole morning to pack and we left here around 12:30. It was a beautiful drive there. Then I got my new companion, Sister Gardner! She just came from Ithaca! ️

After some minor technical difficulties with the sim card, we headed back up to Plattsburg... A 4 hour drive... We stopped at 9 to stretch our legs and watch the evening devotional. So we didn't end up getting him until 10:32... It was crazy!

But I love Sister Gardner!! She is the best! And she also is a hair stylist, so she cut my hair for real today and it looks so good

We had a baptism this week!!! David got baptized and it was interesting, but perfect. He was able to be an amazing example to his family and friends and he feels so good! He is so amazing!

That's about it for this week. It was fun and I am now 5 days behind in my journal🏻

My spiritual thought comes from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."

Love you all!! Have a great week. 

Love, 

Sister Thacker

A few are self explanatory

But there was a pretty rainbow

A pretty tree

Pretty transfer drive views

My hair cut

First Pic with new comp

Pretty sacrament drive river had to stop and take pics 

Annnnnd, CHICK-FIL-A as always , but this time with a PEACH SHAKE! Yum!

BAPTISM (we cannot show faces)

Week 39 Heat Wave

It has been so hot and humid this week and it's not okay, everyone here says it's a heat wave

I don't think there was anything huge this week, but it was good. We made plans for David baptism which is this Friday, so exciting!

We had a lesson with David on Tuesday and we had the opportunity to have his cousin join in! (His distant cousin) 

But it was a very cool experience because, his cousin, is a missionary serving in Spain, and so we had both him and his companion. We all testified of the blessings of obedience and the power of Spirit that was in that lesson was so tangible. The Spirit that missionaries have is real!

We have lessons with a returning member and she is amazing! She shared her testimony with us a few times this week and she said, "when you are so full of joy, you just want to share it. But you forget to sit down and listen." she was talking about her experience right after she got baptized, compared to now after having been inactive and coming back. She talked about the JOY she felt when we joined the church and how much love she had for it. She wanted to share it, but she also didn't take the time to continue growing her testimony and eventually, she began having doubts and went away for a little bit. Now, having come back, the joy she feels is even greater because she is taking the time to study every day and learn all about the truths of the Gospel. And because she is doing that, her capacity to share the Gospel is more than before because of her stronger testimony.

Its a testimony to me of the importance of daily scripture study and prayer. 

We taught a lesson this week about CPR. Not the life saving CPR, but the soul saving CPR. C stands for Church, P stands for Prayer, and R stands for reading (or repentance). If you feel weak or you start to have doubts and feel your faith weakening, I promise you, as a representative of Jesus Christ, if you do those 3 things, that you will feel your faith increase, you will have more joy, and your capacity to endure through trials with will be strengthened.

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

Sister Thacker

Pictures...

We didn't take very many pictures this week

But here is a quote that I really like

Week 38

Oh my goodness what a week this was!

It was crazy. 

So some highlights

Monday we found out we are now...Drumroll... Authorized to have Baptisms!!!!!!! We have been busy this week trying to get all of the details worked out for both David and Braden!

We had some crazy lessons, David almost dropped us, but it's all good now and he is preparing to be baptized on June 26th!

We had a Devotional with Elder Christofferson on Friday and that was amazing!! Wow, he is truly an Apostle of the Lord. He taught us so much and reminded us of the simple truths of the Gospel. 

1. Read the Book of Mormon every day!

2. Pray every day!

3. You can count all you need to do to enter the Celestial Kingdom, on one hand. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. It's that simple, 5 things.

4. God loves us and knows us personally and the struggles we are facing. 

5. Trust the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

These are just a few things he said, but it was an amazing experience. The Spirit that was felt in our apartment through the screen was so strong! 

...basically I guess those were the biggest things that happened but the baptisms were a week long process because of all of the details we had to figure out. It felt like a lot more happened. 

Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week! 

Sister Thacker

Some gorgeous peonys from our Branch Presidents yard

A cute caterpiller we saw on our walk

Elder Christofferson!! 

Waiting on Zoom for our friends