Week 65: New Mission!

...And the sun is shining, and the birds are singing, and there are people who want to learn about God's Wondrous Plan!  *contented sigh*  Yay for happy seasons!  Also, no change in release date!!  She'll still be coming home about October 17th. 😁👍

I got a short note and a screenshot from President Vest this week from his video interview with Becca, which is AWESOME!  I'm not sure how many missionaries he has in his care, but it's probably between 300-400, so I thought that was so nice of him to take a second to do that.  It's not the best pic, but it's still fun!

"Just finished a zoom video interview with your sweet daughter.  Just thought I would share a picture of the interview.  She is absolutely wonderful! Thank you for sharing her with the mission.   All our best,


KV"

Anyway, here's most of Sister Fairbanks's email to me. Enjoy!

This morning we officially became the New York Syracuse Mission! Crazy. The Vests moved to Syracuse on Friday and this morning there is one mission for all of upstate New York. I did ask President Vest if the transfers were changing at all, and he said no. SO! You can still expect me home about October 15th. ish. The way that President Vest has been doing transfers is that missionaries fly home on the Thursday of transfer week, so it might be the 17th. :D

We had a couple of awesome lessons with Melissa and Harold this week! We taught them the plan of salvation and the they loved it. They said it made a lot of sense and they really like our perspective on Adam and Eve. Melissa said it really filled a lot of holes for her. Then we met them again on Friday. Harold read the chapter we assigned them about four times. We taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ and they really already have a great understanding of all the principles, especially the gift of the Holy Ghost. We committed them to pray specifically about the Book of Mormon. I had a fun experience telling them that "I moved out to New York to share this book with people. It means so much to me." That was kind of the first time I've told anyone that. It was pretty cool. We are certainly blessed with an increased testimony when we share it frequently. And I find it easier to share when I can feel that they are receptive. 

Tuesday we finally got to go to one of our weekly services, which is Meals on Wheels! Super stoked about that. I love working in the kitchen. :D We had a lesson with Eric on Tuesday that went really well. He hadn't prayed specifically about baptism because he has been praying for the Spirit to be with him and give him strength through a tough week. But he did tell us that July 30 kept coming to his mind, so we are all praying SUPER hard that he gets the same answer we are getting - that he is ready for this step! Super exciting. 

That night we were walking after a lesson with Khulani and a guy standing at his truck started talking to us. One of the first things he said is that he doesn't normally like talking to people. (Probably prompted too ;) Long story short, we gave him a Book of Mormon and had an awesome conversation with him!! We're meeting with him again tomorrow. We were super pumped for the work after we found him! 

Yep, we had interviews with President Vest on Wednesday. :) I love him. We had a good visit and he noticed that I am a lot happier... The whole Vest family called us while we were walking yesterday to let us know that they were thinking about us. They asked the kids whom they wanted to call. Kelsie said "Sister Sessions," and Kate said, "Sister Fairbanks." Made our day!!! 

On Friday and Saturday we got to help with a community service project building a play ground! It was a ton of fun! We got to screw a bunch of boards and on Saturday we got to hang the signs. It was fun! Manual labor is so great when you really haven't done it in a while. We met some pretty cool people too. 

We have been doing a lot of walking this week. I love it! It's been hot and sunny and fun! We visit and talk a lot while we walk, which is honestly so nice. We really have a great time together. Now we have a goal to get better at taking pictures. ;) 

So, welcome to the New York Syracuse Mission!!!

And here's the group email:

Hello!

So the big, super exciting news for this week is that the Rochester Mission and the Utica Mission have officially merged TODAY. We are so excited for this new change! President Vest is still over all of us, including three more zones in the west part of the state. There's change in the air and I just love to see the work of the Lord move forward. 

This week has been fantastic! We have had a lot of fun working super hard this week. We had some great lessons and talked to a ton of people. It has seriously been so fun. We also saw fireflies this week! We caught five of them. Up close they are gross, but far away they are magical. :) Ithaca is gorgeous. 

Hope you all have a super great week! Remember how much God loves you! 

Sister Fairbanks