November 23, 2015

No group email this week. Some things Jeremy mentioned to me and his mom.

Things are going alright here. My interview with President did help me a lot. I don't know, I kinda felt like I was just here so that we could punish another elder or something but one of the first things President told me was that my change caught him by surprise but it's what the Lord wanted. That simple sentence helped a lot. I did have an interesting experience though, two of the Hermanas in my district are brand new and are still learning Spanish. One of them was fairly sick on Saturday and took advantage of the fact that we were in Urubamba asking us to give her a blessing. That's fine, but she asked me to do it in English. That was super hard for me, I'd never given a blessing in English before and I was seriously just translating what I would've said in Spanish. It was Spanish grammar and everything, it was pretty embarrassing. She got better though, which is good :)

We had an alright week this week. It was a little hard, our investigator with a baptismal date fell through, we haven't seen him in a couple of weeks now. We're finding new people though and I'm excited to see their progress. At the beginning of the year President put a goal of 1200 baptisms in all the mission for the year of 2015. As of Oct 1 we were only at 406. That means that every companionship needs to have 8 baptisms by the end of the year. I really hope we can do it. I don't know how, but President promised us it was possible and I felt the spirit when he made that promise. I know it's possible, we just need to work our butts off.

In 32 days we're going to Skype! Hooray!

November 16, 2015

No group email from Jeremy today. Here are the emails he wrote to me and his mom.

Mom,

To be honest the thing that excites me the most from what you wrote this week is that I can see Kaitlyn's plays when I get back. It's funny how much that excites me too, I didn't realize I missed that stuff so much. All I know is that first thing I go do with Kaitlyn, we're going to go see a musical.

I realized this morning that Thanksgiving was coming up. I was looking at the calendar in our pensionista's house and it just hit me all of a sudden "We're in November! Thanksgiving's next week!" My comp just looks at me and says "Oh yeah. Cool" Peruvians just don't understand the magic of a day full of food. I'm more excited for Christmas though. I started counting down the days, and the other day I told my pension "There's only 44 days until Christmas!" She turns and says "43 elder. I'm counting down too" She's the funniest little lady. My pension's like your stereotypical grandma, she's just always happy, she does little crafts, she even made cookies the other day.

I didn't hear anything about Paris. What's happened? Sometimes it shocks me how disconnected I am to the rest of the world.

So today for Pday we got together with a bunch of elders from Cusco and the hermanas from Urubamba and went to some ruins that are about an hour and a half from Calca. We got up there, took a lot of photos, then Elder Ard says that there was more higher up on the mountain. So basically we all started bushwacking up this mountain, and it was ridiculous. There were cacti everywhere and there was literally no path we were just climbing straight up. We got to this one part where Hermana David cut herself pretty good on a rock and started bleeding. She was a bit ahead of me, but I still saw it happen and soon enough I could feel my blood pressure dropping. I tried just telling myself that I wasn't sick, sometimes I can talk myself out of it like that, but it was no use. Elder Salazar saw me and he says "Thacker you're sick. Sit down right now." I laid down on a rock right off the path (still on the side of the mountain), actually ended up puking, and then I was fine. It was pretty embarrassing though. I really hate that I do that, I wish it didn't happen.

When I was with Ard we just talked about Quillabamba the whole time. He was there when I first got there and we lived together for about 3 months. I miss those times. It also made me miss Mama Chana. I love that even here in another country, far away from all you guys, I have family here in the members. I'm so grateful for those guys and everything they do for us.

I love you Mom. In about 6 weeks we'll be talking! Can't wait :)

Jeremy

 

Dad,

It is in the Sacred Valley. It's weird to see that name in English, it's always been Valle Sagrado. I'm actually DL over all of the Valle so in the little amount of time that I'm here I've gotten to know most of it already. It's gorgeous here, if I ever get the chance to take you guys to Peru we're visiting Valle Sagrado and Quillabamba for sure, they're two of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

To get to Machu Picchu you usually get on a bus in a town called Pisac, which is also part of my area. I actually remember a Spanish assignment I had where we had to plan a trip to Machu Picchu and I talked about Calca and Pisac. Now I'm living there which is weird to think about. I'm not going anytime soon though. We're planning a trip in August with all of the elders from my group and I want to go then with those guys. If we actually get to do it then it's gonna be sweet, there's nobody else I'd rather go with.

I actually feel a little troubled with my change. I don't know if I'm here so much because it's where the Lord needed me or if I'm here simply because they had to send a wicked elder to Choquehuanca. Because that's how the assisstants made it sound. Elder Martin was supposed to come here and be dl but they found out he had a couple problems and sent him to Choquehuanca. To me that makes it seem like Choquehuanca's a punishment, and I'm just here to fill in a gap. We actually have interviews with President tomorrow and I'm hoping to talk with him about all of that. Maybe he can help clarify the situation.

My week here was really boring too. Pday today was fun, I wrote Mom about everything that we did. If you haven't read her email yet you should. That's easier than explaining it again. I'm just hoping to work really hard this week, honestly our numbers from this last week were downright embarrassing. I've gotta make up for that.

Love you dad. A little less than 6 weeks until Christmas!

 

November 9, 2015

Well, this has been a crazy week. Something that I didn't tell you guys last week was that it was transfers! I didn't mention anything because both Elder Aguilar and I were staying in Choquehuanca. So we got back to Choquehuanca Monday night, Tuesday was a normal day, then Wednesday during the studies the zone leaders call us. Our conversation went something like this:

Elder Heslop: "Hey Elder Thacker, how are you doing?"

Me: "I'm doing great, how are you?"

Heslop: "Just fine. And how has your morning been? Enjoying the studies?"

Me: "My morning has been just peachy."

Heslop: "That's good, I'm glad you've had a good morning. And speaking of, your morning's about to get a lot more exciting!"

Me: "Um ok. Why? What's going on?"

Heslop: "You're having a change! We don't know where you're headed or why you're leaving but President just called and said that you should pack your bags and he wants to talk to you tonight in Cusco."

So with that, I hurried and packed my bags and then left. We got to Cusco fairly late that night, around 9 and went straight to the office since they told me I had to talk with President. Well, President wasn't there but the assistants were and they explained everything to me. I was going to have a change to Calca, this little town in Valle Sagrado about an hour from Cusco. My new comp is Elder Herrera and I needed to leave the next day.

I've been in Calca for 3 or 4 days now and I'm loving it! It's so beautiful and we have a lot of people to teach. Most of my time here was just spent meeting people so I don't have any cool spiritual experiences to share with you guys, but that's been the most exciting thing this week.

Sorry there's no cool stories! I'll be better next week. Hope to hear from you guys!

Elder Thacker

P.S. I now hold a mission record. Most of the gringos who go to Choquehuanca stay there for 5 changes (about 7 months). Elder Van Uitert, who I replaced, was the gringo who had been there the shortest amount of time. He stayed only 3 changes (a little more than 4 months). But not anymore. I am now the missionary (counting both gringos and Latinos) who's been the shortest amount of time there, with 2 changes and 1 day. (3 months) Nobody could believe it, not even me!

November 2, 2015

No group email from Jeremy this week so here are some highlights from his email to me and his mom.

"It seems to me like a lot of cool people are moving into the ward. In those letters that you guys sent me there were 3 or 4 that began with "Elder Thacker, you don't know me because I'm new to the ward" but they gave really good advice. I'm excited to meet these people.

So I gotta tell you what we did for pday today. Our pensionista's husband asked us the other day if we knew how to drive motorcycles. We both responded no, so then he asked if we wanted to learn. Today we went and rode with him for about an hour in the morning. I'm putting a couple of pictures in dropbox and if I have time I'll add a video of me driving  (The internet here is really slow though, so it might have to be next week). I must say it was pretty fun, and I did better than I thought I would. But don't tell Mom, I don't want her freaking out. Also there's a family in our branch that does ceramics of characters from Angry Birds and Plants Vs. Zombies. I asked them to make me a zombie in a suit with a missionary badge and they delivered it to us today. I'm also putting a photo of that in the dropbox. :)" (there were no pictures of him on a motorcycle, or of any ceramics.)

"Halloween here was super fun. Last year I didn't see any trick or treaters or anything so I didn't think they celebrated it, but this year was different. That night we were actually in a lesson with an investigator named Julia. We teach her in the pharmacy she works at because she's always there and everytime we teach we have to leave it open just in case her boss comes or something. So during the lesson we could see all of the little kids that were dressed up going trick or treating. There were actually a lot who came to the pharmacy and interrupted the lesson. I wasn't even annoyed though, seeing all those little kids. It made me really happy. "