Hey everybody!
I can´t believe it is already October! Wow, that is so wierd! Spring started here a few weeks ago but it has been really cold. It´s still been raining everyday. I saw how beautiful the weather is in Salt Lake during conference and it made me so trunky.
Well, a new transfer has begun and with it a new experience. My new companion is Elder Pereira. He is a brasilian from Recife. We don´t have a problem communicating at all because I´m thankfully good enough at the language to express myself pretty well and he has been studying English for several years so he can talk to me when we need too. He snores like none other so I haven´t gotten much sleep the past week but I´m hoping I´ll get used to it soon.
Our area is a mess right now. Our ward hasn´t had a bishop for a month now and we´ve been told it might be another two til we get one. Our ward missionaries don´t work much and our invesitigators don´t like them very much. No one in the ward will give us references except the returned missionaries who all live on the other side of our large area so we don´t get out there much. But we are still finding people and we have a few really good investigators so all is well.
I´ve been having some pretty impactful experiences with investigators that I want to share.
Yolanda is an invesitigator we´ve had for about a month and she is marked to be baptized this weekend. She has been awesome but now she has a ton of problems in her life and for some reason we can´t get in contact with her so we´ll see what happens. She is having a legal battle with the father of her children because he hasn´t been paying child support and her brother got in a horrible accident and is in another state dieing. She doesn´t have enough money to get to church some weeks so she definitely doesn´t have a way to get to her brother to say goodbye. I read a talk by Pres. Monsoon the other day that talked about death and the miracle of ressurection. I think I´m going to get a copy for her.
Nila is our recent convert of two weeks ago and she is a rock star! Before she was baptized she was attending three different churches, now she is still going to three different churches but she´s taking the Book of Mormon with her and telling everyone there about how our chruch is true! She has a mountain of references for us and even though she is kind of old she asks to come with us to lessons! She is definitely elect!
We have a family that is marked for the end of the month. They are all adult brothers and sisters who live together and it is amazing how much they have changed in the time we started teaching them. Katia is the most prepared and she reads the Book of Mormon everyday. She is almost done with Alma already. Her sister Valeria has some forgivness problems with their mom and other brother but Katia is being an amazing example for her. Elvis is their brother and he is a single dad with three kids. He has stopped drinking and is looking for a job but his life is being changed by the gospel. Awesomeness!
Did everyone like Conference? How was it? I don´t know cause it was in Português. haha! Pres. Jackson created a new rule that all the Americans have to watch it in Português so it was a struggle but what I understood was great. We had to get up at 4:30 on Sunday to go to another zone to watch the Priesthood session. I was so tired by the time the last session ended.
Yesterday was the big election here. It has been crazy because everywhere is just covered in election stuff. It is the law in Brasil that everyone has to vote so everyone was actually involved. The streets were littered with fliers!
I´ve been doing some refleciton and I´ve come to realize that the mission is the hardest thing I have ever done. Not to sound proud, but I´ve never really struggled at things. I´ve always been pretty good at school and work. I´m so far out of my comfort zone here but it´s so good at the same time. I´m learning so much and really growing up. I am coming to appreciate more and more the Gospel, which unfortunately I´ve taken for granted for a while. I really love the challenge. Everyday has its ups and downs but overall this is so amazing! Thanks to everyone for the support.
Love you all,
Elder MacLane W Taggart
No comments:
Post a Comment