September 5, 2016

I can't believe it's only September. Exactly a month from today I will be getting off a plane at the SLC airport. That's nuts. I'm trying not to be trunky but sometimes it's really hard. I had a dream last night that I came home and I was just there with you guys looking for a job and getting stuff ready for classes, it wasn't very exciting but it felt so real. It's seriously nuts, I can't believe it.

We're working hard to get one more baptism. I think I told you about Deisy last week, a new investigator we found. Well she now has the first 3 lessons (Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and Gospel of Christ) along with the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity. We're blowing through these lessons with her. Yesterday she said she was a little scared for her baptism though, which worries me. I honestly think she's ready. She's not the quickest to understand things and that's why she's scared, but she feels it and she's willing. That's what counts most. We'll see how it goes, we're going to finish the lessons this week and on the 17th she has her interview so she can get baptized on the 24th.

 

This has been a pretty good week. We're trying to work hard and conquer my trunkitis haha. Actually we taught 17 lessons this week which is pretty good. It's kind of weird with my companion though, he likes to take charge of everything but since he's new to the sector he doesn't know a whole lot about the people that we're teaching. In our weekly planning on Thursday he went on for like half an hour about how this one girl that we visited doesn't attend church because she doesn't feel support from the branch and she needs a friend and when I tried telling him that she's very active and has only missed one Sunday in all my time here he refused to believe me. "But I didn't see her on Sunday" "Elder, you didn't even meet her until Tuesday, you can't tell me you were looking to see if she was there on Sunday" He's an interesting fellow haha. But he works hard which is good.

 

The other day I was trying to pay my pension for this change and she wouldn't accept the money because she thought I was giving her the wrong amount. The next day the zone leaders called Elder Hogan, the financial secretary, figured out I was right but then when we went to pay her the money I had set apart wasn't there. I think I left it in her house but she denies it so I gave her all of my personal but it's still not enough. I'm so frustrated I don't just lose money like that, it's either in her house or one of the elders in our room robbed me.

August 29, 2016 - A Baptism in the River in the Middle of the Jungle.

Ok I don't even know where to start. This has been one of the weirdest weeks of my entire mission.

Raul didn't pass his original baptismal interview because of a couple of problems he had had in his past. During the interview they called one of the mission counselors, Pdte. Reategui, who told Raul that he wanted a personal interview with him during his next trip to Puerto. They set up the interview for this past Wednesday when Presidente Reategui would be here. Wednesday afternoon Raul had his interview, then afterwards Pdte Reategui talked to our branch president and to us about the situation and to see what input we had. After talking to us about it he then replied "Well, the only option I have left is to tell Raul to get baptized as soon as possible!"  With Reategui's approval we were able to move along with Raul's baptism. However, in his original interview they didn't do the last two questions so they had to interview him again to finish those two questions. Elder Wilde, our zone leader, and I decided he could get baptized on the 3rd. That would allow us to do his interview before church yesterday and announce the baptismal service to everybody. However Presidente Cipriano, the branch president, told us that we couldn't do it that day because he'd be traveling. It had to be this week. We were really worried about that because we hadn't invited anybody to his baptism, nobody knew it was going to happen, until Cipriano had an idea. There was an activity for all the youth and YSA in Puerto that was basically like a camping trip 20 minutes out of the city. Raul would be baptized there, in the river. We called Raul he said he was fine with it so Saturday morning he finished his interview then we went and baptized him in the river in the middle of the jungle with every youth and ysa in the district there watching. It was nuts. I don't have any photos right now but I'll try to send them as soon as possible because they were crazy.

I'm so happy to see Raul get baptized. He's such a good kid and he was so excited about being a member of the church and starting over. I don't know what we did to be blessed enough to find him, but I'm so grateful we did.

Yesterday we put another baptismal date with an investigator named Deisy. She's from Juliaca but comes here to Puerto on the weekends and has attended church with us a couple of times now. We never taught her before because she told us she was going to stay in Juliaca but yesterday she came up to me and said "Elder, I don't think I'm going to be in Juliaca anymore and I'm going to start attending here more. Can you baptize me?" Obviously I wasn't going to say no. She's kind of weird though, she records the lessons on her phone so that she doesn't forget anything and she never wants to leave the church. Yesterday we taught her and Raul accompanied us because we were going to teach him after so we finished the lesson and I told her "Look hermana we've got to teach Raul now" kind of like "please leave so we can teach him" and she told me "That's alright I'll just sit in and listen. That way I learn more!" I've never seen that before from an 18 year old girl, it's super weird. But she's really excited and I think it's another sure baptism. She'll be baptized in the end of September.

Wow, I am not good at posting Elder Thacker's updates.

Elder Thacker will be returning home from his mission on October 5, 2016. Not too far away.


Over the past few weeks some changes have been made to the Peru Cusco mission, most notably was the calling of a new Mission President. The Elders that work in the mission home had the opportunity to accompany President Harbertson and his wife to the airport as they were leaving to fly home. Many tears were shed. This past Sunday we as a family traveled to Farmington where the Harbertson's reported on their mission. We witnessed many joyous reunions from the 100+ returned missionaries from the Cusco mission that were in attendance to this homecoming. I think the highlight of the meeting for me was when President Harbertson asked all the RM's in attendance to come to the front of the chapel and sing Called To Serve in Spanish while he accompanied them on the piano. After the meeting Kathy and I got to personally thank the Harbertson's for taking care of our Jeremy. Kathy and I feel truly blessed to have had the Harbertson's be a part of Jeremy's life.

The other big change for Elder Thacker is that he was transferred to a new area called Puerto Maldanado. He and his new companion Elder Estigarribia will be opening up the area. He's nervous about it, but also very excited for the opportunity to get back out into the field. On his last day in Cusco his Mamita that takes care of the Elders in her area (feeds them, and helps with laundry) had a going away party for him. She really got attached to her "Baby Bug" as she called him. Much like the Harbertson's, Kathy and I feel blessed to have had Yeyita Linda and her family take such good care of our Jeremy in Cusco.

Elder Thacker also had the recent opportunity to travel to some ruins called Ollantaytambo and he sent some pictures. To see the sites he has seen in person!

I think Jeremy is a bit taller than the average Inca.

Well, that's it for this update. Until next time, thanks for all the love, support and prayers offered on behalf of Elder Thacker. He feels and appreciates them.