Week 64: Ah! THERE she is!

If you get Sister Fairbanks's group emails, you will have already noticed that she's back to her cheerful self--with a subject line of "Full of Joy," there's little doubt how she's doing. 😂  No word yet about whether the mission merge next week will affect her release date, but there IS news about the name of the new mission.  I don't remember who said that the name of the new mission would be the New York Rochester Mission, but it turns out that that was merely speculation.  The name of the new mission will officially be the New York SYRACUSE Mission.  I actually thought that that might be what they would name it, since Syracuse is the most central large city in the mission, and it's closest to the airport, but I thought I was wrong!  Maybe I'm just a prophetess...😂😂😂 #gonnagetstruckbylightning

Becca's email to me was just as chipper, so my momma heart is beating along with a much steadier beat today.  Here are a couple of pics I grabbed off of Instagram from Zone Conference followed by excerpts of her email to me:

Hi Mom!!! 

Sounds like an awesome week to me! Super busy, but that's nice. That's how I like it anyway, hehe. 

My week was so great!! Seriously, compared to last transfer, this has been a party. So the rest of Monday was great. We went for a little nature hike by the Cornell Ornithology Lab. It was pretty! And fun to do something more than sit in our apartment. Then we came home and had dinner and got ready for the rest of our night. That evening, we were headed to the church so I could practice piano for 15 minutes because they asked me to play for zone conference. (Didn't end up having to, haha.) I really felt like we needed to try one more person before we went, and I am SO glad we did!!! Melissa was found by the sisters a few weeks ago, and she and her brother Harold are SO cool!!! We gave them both copies of the Book of Mormon and we had a second lesson with them on Thursday evening. They are amazing and are really picking things up pretty fast. We had a ride set up for them to come to church, but they got cold feet last minute. They had a pretty scary experience the last time they tried to go to a church, so it was understandable. We are going to keep working with them though. We are going to see them tonight and I am so excited! 

Tuesday was zone conference and it was AMAZING. Of course...We drove up to Syracuse and were combined with the Syracuse zone. I got to see Sister Swallow and Sister Di Iulio again. Being with President Vest is THE best. ...That night when we got back to Ithaca we had a lesson with a guy named Khulani. He's from South Africa and we taught him [about] the restoration [of Christ's church].  It was a lot of fun! Teaching  is definitely the best part of missionary work. 

Wednesday morning we walked a lot. We walked a lot that afternoon too. Then we had a lesson with a lady named Barbara at the church. We only live about 2 minutes from the church - SUPER nice. 

Thursday was really good. That was the night we had another lesson with Melissa and Harold. We told them more about church and especially sacrament meeting. Then Melissa asked, "How do you deal with the spiritual warfare that is going on today?" and that led into a discussion about "Why do bad things happen to good people?" It went super well and they love hearing our testimonies. And the concept of revelation is so fascinating to them. It was so great. I love them. 

Friday morning we had ward coordination on Cornell campus. SO COOL. I love all the old buildings and the campus is just beautiful. I will have to take pictures when we go again. We had a couple of cool lessons that afternoon, one with Eric... The Spirit was SO strong. We committed him to pray about baptism... Eric is so amazing though and he said he really felt the Spirit in our lesson. It was a great experience for all of us. 

Saturday we had another lesson with Khulani and helped him to understand the Book of Mormon a little more. Reading with them is also a great way to  figure out if they can even read or not, which is more common than I expected. But he did great and we had a cool discussion about faith. 

Sunday was wonderful. Eric came to church and he even sings in the ward choir. And I just love going to church. Best part of the week. 

So I'm doing great!!! Sister Sessions and I get along super well and have a ton of fun visiting and working together. Ithaca is so amazing and I just am so happy. I was actually thinking the other day "wow, did I really have a hard time in the last few weeks?" Yeah, I glanced over my journal and I most definitely did. And I was talking to Sister Sessions the other night and realized that I didn't talk hardly at all last transfer so I have been sharing stories like crazy to her. But she's super awesome and we can relate so well. Still some differences of course, but she already made me promise to write her when I got home... Anyway, life is super good right now. President Vest called us on Sunday to check up on me, but he said that we both sounded happy... I really am just doing so much better. My head has been clearer too. It's nice. 

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!! Have a super super fantastical week!!!  ❤❤❤❤😘😘😘😘❤❤❤❤😘😘😘😘❤❤❤❤

❤❤❤ Sister Fairbanks 

1 - out working

2 - at zone conference with Sister Swallow and Sister Taylor 

3 - 😁

Good Morning! 

So Ithaca is the best place on earth. I have loved all of the areas that I have served in, and Ithaca is definitely added to the list of places I adore! It's so beautiful and the people here are fantastic! Sister Sessions and I are having a lot of fun together.  

We found a few new people to teach this week, including a brother and sister! Melissa and Harold grew up believing in Jesus Christ and have always been so devoted. They were thinking recently that they wanted to find a new church to start attending regularly, and then we knocked on their door! They are so so sweet and are so close to God. I get excited to go see them! 

Fun story for this week: we walked up to a lady that was walking her dog and she stopped and talked to us for a few minutes. She informed us pretty quickly that she is Jewish and she and her husband are very practicing, but we had an awesome conversation about God. Then she advised us to make sure we get enough water because it was hot that day, and as she was walking away she said, "Don't overdo it! Or as we say in my family, don't over Jew it!" Haha, we were dying. 

How you all have a great week! 

Sister Fairbanks