Nov. 1, 2014

Hola All!
Another week has passed here at the MTC in Provo Utah! I can't believe in three days I'll be gone and landing in Seattle! We have to be at the travel office on Tuesday morning at 3:30 AM! That's early.

It's crazy how slow, but also how fast time goes by. It seems like just yesterday I got here. But at the same time this week has dragged on! The new district that arrived on Wednesday is really awesome. There's a sister from Queensland Australia and her accent is really cool. :-) it's really weird to me that the new district is going a variety of places. Some back to Australia some to California and some to Chicago Illinois when our district and the other district that arrived last week with us are all going to Seattle.

There will be 15 of us flying to Seattle on Tuesday. I believe we have one Russian speaking sister going to the Seattle mission as well. How cool is that? Let's start from the beginning. Sunday was really great. After church and meetings we had a temple walk with Brother and Sister Harris from our Branch Presidency.

Choir practice was awesome and Elder Allen's talk was amazing (at Sunday Night's Devotional). Elder Allen is the church managing missionary director. After the devotional on Sunday we stayed in the same building and washed talk given by David A. Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on Christmas Day 2011. He spoke on "Character of Christ." It was absolutely amazing! I wish I could get a copy.

We had classes on Monday. And on Tuesday, we had another devotional. The choir actually got to perform at this one and we did an amazing job if I do say so myself. Rosemary M. Wixom the Primary General President spoke as she, too, did an amazing job.

Wednesday rollaround and we have classes in gym and then the new district was here. It's crazy to see all the new Elders and Sisters with the little orange dots on their name tag everyone yelling, "Welcome to the MTC!" I simply could not believe that one more week had passed.

Thursday was tough for me. Teaching with our investigator Meghan has not gone very well at all. She's not very receptive or open to our questions and she doesn't want to participate at all. We finally had a breakthrough with her yesterday though. Elder Jennings and I are learning to work together excellently and slowly.

One of our other investigators, Chaela, had kidney stones and was in the ER on Wednesday and resting on Thursday so we only got to teach/see her twice. It's really very sad because we really really liked her! She was very bubbly and happy.

Friday we had In-Field Orientation where all missionaries leaving have a 9-hour class about planning and working with members and etc. It was long, but good. Halloween in the MTC is no different from another day. Thank you for the candy and packages though!!

Today we had P-Day. Laundry and temple are on our list to do!!

With love always,

Elder Thacker