Photos from the field

MAC Towne

I love this area! It is so fantastic. We are being so blessed. We set another date this week. I have my new companion Sister Goff. She is a "baller" as the Elders like to say. She is such a great missionary, full of Greenie Fire!

I took a picture of her the other night that I will send to yall. I said our companionship prayer and she fell asleep. I thought it was quite funny.

Also, I took a picture of us 'old missionaries in the McMinnville Ward. This is our "High School Musical" pose. Me, Sister Dickson, Elder Geohagan and Elder Furrows.  

If you could pray for Melissa T., Melissa H., Juanita, Estan, Trena, and Brian that would be most appreciated. They will be joining the church and coming closer to following Jesus Christ soon and Satan is focusing his efforts on them. 

I love yall. Talk to yall later!

-Love Sister Thacker

Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls

Well, the weather is beautiful right now in Tennessee. It is a little cooler than it has been. Very nice.

Sister Dickson is being transfered. : ( I am sad of that. She is going to Clarksville. Sister Goff will be my new companion. She has been out one transfer. She was trained by Sister Day. She is fresh meat... I am very excited! A little nervous too... pray. She is a very Bubbly sister which is good for me, because I have to force my bubbliness. I am sure we will have fun together. The Spirit told me 4 days ago that I was going to serve with her soon. Funny how he told me that... preparation I suppose.

Well, the girls were confirmed yesterday. It was really great. We had a couple other people come to church as well. It was a great Tylers-Birthday Present. He was there with me.

We went to a couple really beautiful places last Prep day. We went to a place called Fall Creek Falls. "Jungle Book" the movie was filmed there. It is the highest waterful on this side of the Mississippi. (Yep, higher than Niagra). It was beautiful. We did some hiking. I also will send pictures of the "Rock Island Falls". The majority of these falls come out of the rocks. Eastern Tennessee is full of caves and waterfalls and a lot of other amazingly beautiful things.

The work has been fantastic. The Lord is richly blessing this area right now. We have 4 different people with future dates to be baptized. If yall could pray for Melissa, Juanita, Estan, and Brian that would be great. Also pray for Trena. I LOVE McMinnville. I NEVER want to leave.

Love yall tonz,
Sister Thacker

The Rains came down and the Floods came up!

They were Baptized!!! Tracey Kimberly and Samantha got baptized last Thursday, it was totally awesome! I will send some pictures.=20

So, I have had a couple of close calls this last week with all the rain that we have been getting. We have gotten over 8 inches of rain in the past 3-4 days. I have never seen so much rain in all my life!=20

The next two stories have material that might scare the mother and mother-in-law... or any grandmothers. This may need to be sensored for older people with heart problems. : )

Miracle 1: So anyway, we were on an exchange with a couple in the ward. It was night time and we came to a large hill that intersected with a major road at the end. As we started decending towards the stop sign, the Spirit told me, even before the driver had started braking that we were not going to be able to stop. I got a little scared and said a quick prayer in my heart that there wouldn't be any cars coming on the major road so we could stop without hurting someone else. The driver started to brake and sure enough we started to hydroplane. We ran the stop sign and as we did I looked both ways for any cars. God had answered my prayers! There were none. The car luckily came to a stop before we could run off into the ditch. I know we would have been greatly injured had we not stopped at that exact moment.=20

Miracle 2: The next morning we went down to a little town called "Irving College." This is real country. The road that we were driving on ran along side a river. Well, because of all the rain, there were portions of the road that were under water. We came to a point where we couldn't see how deep the water was. I figured that it couldn't be more than a foot deep so
I told Sister Dickson to proceed. Well, it was more than a foot deep. In fact, it started coming over the hood of our car! We both started screaming and Sister Dickson started taking her foot off the accelerator. I yelled at her and told her to keep going because that was the deepest point.
So she pushed on the gas and we slowly started moving again. There was a
little island of road that we pulled to stop on. The car died. We were both shaking.

A large truck came up behind us and told us that it was only going to get worse. We tried starting our car again and a whole bunch of steam billowed out of the exhaust pipe. We let the car run for a few minutes as we tried to gather enough strength and guts to go through it again. We said a prayer, well, I never really stopped praying... and turned around. The Lord answered our prayers again. The water was not as deep when we went thru the second time. I will send some pictures of what we went through. Pretty crazy, and outright stupid... but I learned my lesson.

Well my friends, I will talk to yall next week, if I don't get washed away.=
I haven't checked to make sure our apartment has been built on a sturdy=
foundation.

Love,
The very wet,
Sister Thacker