August 3, 2010

Well hi there everybody! Another week has come and gone, can you believe it? I´ve been out for about a month and a half now and I´ll be out in the field in 2 weeks! I´m so excited! First off, thanks to those who have been sending me letters and such, I really appreciate them. Especially the wonderful package full of Hawaiian goodness from my folks! Love you guys! If anyone is itchin´ to send me some love in the form of writing don´t hesitate. / Alright so as for the happenings of the past week... If you´ve noticed I haven´t talked about my weight loss for a while. I kinda hit a wall a few weeks ago and stopped losing but I´m happy to report that I have once again resumed my thinification and am 4 lbs away from reaching my MTC weightless goal of 20 lbs. This is all thanks in part to my running during gym, I can now run 2 miles without stopping. / We have weekly progress assessments called 'milestones' once a week but last week our class was so crazy that E. Abernethy and I didn't do ours until last Wednesday, and we have been speaking Português in class for about 3 weeks now btw. Well when we did ours our teacher almost started crying because she said it reminded her of when she gained her testimony and there was some way intense spiritual power going on. It was way nice to get received like that. And she said that our Português was better than her trainer's in her mission! / Being cooped up in this big buildings for so many days can get pretty boring, so what is a group of 12 guys going to do? Shave our legs of course! haha! E. Pockrus has (had) some intense body hair so we all agreed that if everyone in the district shaved their legs he would shave his entire upper body. And well... he did it! It was so funny. I do have to admit that I am not liking the shinny legs though. It will grow back though... right? / We also had TRC this week. TRC is a fake teaching experience with real Brazilians who are from the local ward and there is a whole set up with couches and stuff. So I was kinda freakin out before because this was the real-fake deal! But we ended up doing really well. Better than even I thought apparently, because the next day they asked E. Abernethy and I to do a practice followup visit in front of ALL the teachers in their Friday meeting. Now I was really freaked out for that and it was pretty frustrating because our practice situation was that the guy didn't want to take the lessons anymore and he was very stubborn. In the end we did fine so my reputation is building. / The construction on the MTC is quickly finishing up and it is so awesome! The cafeteria opened up yesterday and it is so nice! They even gave us cake to celebrate the occasion! And the path to the new gym is almost open too so that will be good, considering they told us it would be open three weeks ago. / I'm getting ready to direct the MTC choir Sunday. I'm going to do 'I Know That My Redeemer Lives' and I've got a really cool idea for the arrangement. The Brazilians are not very musically inclined so I have to do it simple but I'm going to be pulling some a Capella stuff and solos too. I hope it turns out okay. I'll let you all know how it goes next week. / Sorry that there isn't much to write about this week. Things are just dandy and I'm happy so be glad I'm not writing 10 pages about how I hate it here. I'm being blessed by the buckets and I recognize the Lord's hand everyday. I am growing so much! One of my teachers always tells me how much he admires that I am happy all the time. I love you all so much and am grateful for your prayers and thoughts, keep em coming! / Your's truly, Elder MacLane W. Taggart

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"Efforts and Courage are not enough without Purpose and Direction" - JFK