Well... The curtain has closed on my time here in Pirajussara, Campo Limpo. It´s been an incredible 7 months here and I feel like I have learned so much and tried to make a such a difference. I´m definitely leaving here with my head held high. Turns out Elder Christensen will have to leave the area too. That´s right, they closed the area and are sending new elders here tomorrow. This was a really good week though so we kind of finished it all off well.
Lucas was baptized on Saturday and it was awesome! We also found a new family of 7 people that all want to be baptized and are marked for January 7th. The area is in top condition for the new elders. Everyone in the ward is really sad that we are leaving but we´re needed in other areas now.
Today has been a really good too. The stake relief society organized a huge lunch for the whole zone. We also traded presents! I got a mickey mouse picture frame! It truly was incredible.
Now I´m just super nervous to see how everything will work out. I have a whole new set of challenges that are unlike anything I´ve done so far on the mission. I was released as a Zone Leader and now I have 3 new responsibilities. 1 - I´m going to train a new missionary. 2 - I´m a District Leader. 3 - I´m opening a new area! I´m so scared but if I´ve learned anything here it´s that if you rely on the Lord everything works out.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Elder Taggart
Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
December 12, 2011 Christmas Time is Here
Dear Everyone,
Well that was a fulfilling week for sure! I feel so good right now and I know that God hears and answers prayers and blesses those who choose to serve him.
The week started off a little rocky. We have been having a really difficult time in finding new investigators. Tons of people are lettings us into their houses but everyone says, "I don´t want to make any commitments until January. Come back then." This seems to a general problem here in São Paulo this time of year because all of the missionarys have been telling us the same thing. So what did we do? Well our new amazing district leader Elder N. Alves suggested that we have a district fast from Friday to Saturday. I woke up Saturday morning with the most amazing feelings. the Holy Ghost just kept telling me over and over again that everything was going to work out and was going to be OK.
We finished our fast at lunch then went out to work and knock doors. The first house we knocked after lunch was a family that let us in and accepted the message. At the end of the lesson we marked them for baptism on the 31st of December.
Saturday night was amazing too because it was the baptism of Vitor! It was during the ward Christmas pary so almost the whole ward was there watching. We watched the DVD 'Mundo Feliz' as part of the service and everyone was feeling the spirit then Elder Christensen gave an amazing message about giving our hearts to God this Christmas. I baptized Vitor (the water heater is still broken so it was really cold). And his parents were both really touched. They pretty much told us that their interest in the Church would depend on their experience at the baptism and the party so it was a blessing that everything worked out. After the baptism it was time to eat! Every woman in the ward had to bring a dessert and there was a table the length of the cultural hall full of delicious sweets. The Bishop got in gear and sat and talked with Vitor´s parents for most of the time and by the end he told us that he has already started to set goals with them to get married and baptized too!
Sunday: more blessings! As we were walking out of church a young woman in the ward came running after us and told us "Elder, you guys need to baptize my little brother!" His name is Lucas and when we went to visit the family they told us that the members who are inactive and coming back and that Lucas needed to be baptized as soon as possible. We were like "How about Saturday?" and they all agreed it would be the best day because of the busy holidays. It´s really funny because the first time we met him he was eight-years-old and we told him to get baptized and they said it didn´t really come to their heads until he turned nine just a few weeks ago! So that was a blessing that fell straight out of heaven into our laps.
Overall, this week was a testimony builder of the power of prayer and how the Lord does most of the work. It´s amazing to realize how little of it is actually you and how much you need to depend on God to help you. Humility is the key to success as far as I am concerned. I love this work so much and they joy that you feel on your mission is more real than anything else.
Elder Taggart
Well that was a fulfilling week for sure! I feel so good right now and I know that God hears and answers prayers and blesses those who choose to serve him.
The week started off a little rocky. We have been having a really difficult time in finding new investigators. Tons of people are lettings us into their houses but everyone says, "I don´t want to make any commitments until January. Come back then." This seems to a general problem here in São Paulo this time of year because all of the missionarys have been telling us the same thing. So what did we do? Well our new amazing district leader Elder N. Alves suggested that we have a district fast from Friday to Saturday. I woke up Saturday morning with the most amazing feelings. the Holy Ghost just kept telling me over and over again that everything was going to work out and was going to be OK.
We finished our fast at lunch then went out to work and knock doors. The first house we knocked after lunch was a family that let us in and accepted the message. At the end of the lesson we marked them for baptism on the 31st of December.
Saturday night was amazing too because it was the baptism of Vitor! It was during the ward Christmas pary so almost the whole ward was there watching. We watched the DVD 'Mundo Feliz' as part of the service and everyone was feeling the spirit then Elder Christensen gave an amazing message about giving our hearts to God this Christmas. I baptized Vitor (the water heater is still broken so it was really cold). And his parents were both really touched. They pretty much told us that their interest in the Church would depend on their experience at the baptism and the party so it was a blessing that everything worked out. After the baptism it was time to eat! Every woman in the ward had to bring a dessert and there was a table the length of the cultural hall full of delicious sweets. The Bishop got in gear and sat and talked with Vitor´s parents for most of the time and by the end he told us that he has already started to set goals with them to get married and baptized too!
Sunday: more blessings! As we were walking out of church a young woman in the ward came running after us and told us "Elder, you guys need to baptize my little brother!" His name is Lucas and when we went to visit the family they told us that the members who are inactive and coming back and that Lucas needed to be baptized as soon as possible. We were like "How about Saturday?" and they all agreed it would be the best day because of the busy holidays. It´s really funny because the first time we met him he was eight-years-old and we told him to get baptized and they said it didn´t really come to their heads until he turned nine just a few weeks ago! So that was a blessing that fell straight out of heaven into our laps.
Overall, this week was a testimony builder of the power of prayer and how the Lord does most of the work. It´s amazing to realize how little of it is actually you and how much you need to depend on God to help you. Humility is the key to success as far as I am concerned. I love this work so much and they joy that you feel on your mission is more real than anything else.
Elder Taggart
Monday, December 5, 2011
December 5, 2011 I'm a Dream Guy
Hey Everyone,
How are all of you? Isn´t it such a wonderful time of year? I can´t believe that it is already December! And today is actually a pretty significant day. It´s December 5th. Do you all know what that means? That means that the six month countdown begins... today! That means that between now and June 5th I have a lot to do! There are so many people that I need to find and help follow Jesus Christ. I can´t waste these last six months!
Well this week was pretty normal. We have been working with Vitor and he was going to get baptized but once again something crazy happened. Early Saturday morning his grandma (who to be fair didn´t know about the baptism) showed up at their house and snuck him out of the house and took him to the other side of the city to spend the day with him. In the morning everyone was like, "Where´s Vitor?" His grandma doesn´t have a phone so their was no way of getting in contact with them to tell them to come back. We talked to him last night finally and marked for this Saturday. Third time´s the charm (I hope). At least he finally realized that all this stuff that keeps happening because, as he put it, "the enemy down there doesn´t want him to be baptized."
Artur continues excited to be baptized. We´ve been trying to work with him mom but it´s become really clear that she isn´t interested so we´re going to move forward without her for now. The last time we visited him he said, "Guys, it´s obvious my mom isn´t interested! Just baptize me already! I don´t know what we´re waiting for!" So that what we are going to do.
We are having some trouble with Marlene and Pedro. They are marked for baptism on Christmas Eve but she is not stopping to drink. It´s really interesting because her ex husband was a huge alcoholic when we started teaching them and now he is completely sober. He is showing a lot of interest. The last time we went there it was just him and when we asked him where Marlene was he said she was at the bar. We went up to see if it was true and we saw her in the front drinking and when she saw us coming she ran away. Not a strange thing to happen on the mission.
We are still making baby steps with Antonio, Zenita, Carol, and Joyce. This week we passed by there and Zenita told us that she received a really clear answer that they all need to be baptized. One night she was really tired but decided to read. While she was reading she lost her sleepiness and sat their thinking then she remembered a dream she had when she was a little girl. In the dream she was being attacked by some men in black and then a man in white appeared and saved her then smiled at her. She said she never understood the dream but that night that she stayed up thinking she realized that the man in white in her dream was Elder Taggart aka Me! Last night we visited the whole family with the Bishop and it was an awesome lesson. They need to get married and Antonio doesn´t have time until after Christmas to get things put together so they will be a January baptism.
As for the rest we are just looking for new people to teach and getting things ready for Christmas. We are making December a mega month in our zone of activities and plans so that we can end the year right. That´s all. Love you!
Elder MacLane Taggart
How are all of you? Isn´t it such a wonderful time of year? I can´t believe that it is already December! And today is actually a pretty significant day. It´s December 5th. Do you all know what that means? That means that the six month countdown begins... today! That means that between now and June 5th I have a lot to do! There are so many people that I need to find and help follow Jesus Christ. I can´t waste these last six months!
Well this week was pretty normal. We have been working with Vitor and he was going to get baptized but once again something crazy happened. Early Saturday morning his grandma (who to be fair didn´t know about the baptism) showed up at their house and snuck him out of the house and took him to the other side of the city to spend the day with him. In the morning everyone was like, "Where´s Vitor?" His grandma doesn´t have a phone so their was no way of getting in contact with them to tell them to come back. We talked to him last night finally and marked for this Saturday. Third time´s the charm (I hope). At least he finally realized that all this stuff that keeps happening because, as he put it, "the enemy down there doesn´t want him to be baptized."
Artur continues excited to be baptized. We´ve been trying to work with him mom but it´s become really clear that she isn´t interested so we´re going to move forward without her for now. The last time we visited him he said, "Guys, it´s obvious my mom isn´t interested! Just baptize me already! I don´t know what we´re waiting for!" So that what we are going to do.
We are having some trouble with Marlene and Pedro. They are marked for baptism on Christmas Eve but she is not stopping to drink. It´s really interesting because her ex husband was a huge alcoholic when we started teaching them and now he is completely sober. He is showing a lot of interest. The last time we went there it was just him and when we asked him where Marlene was he said she was at the bar. We went up to see if it was true and we saw her in the front drinking and when she saw us coming she ran away. Not a strange thing to happen on the mission.
We are still making baby steps with Antonio, Zenita, Carol, and Joyce. This week we passed by there and Zenita told us that she received a really clear answer that they all need to be baptized. One night she was really tired but decided to read. While she was reading she lost her sleepiness and sat their thinking then she remembered a dream she had when she was a little girl. In the dream she was being attacked by some men in black and then a man in white appeared and saved her then smiled at her. She said she never understood the dream but that night that she stayed up thinking she realized that the man in white in her dream was Elder Taggart aka Me! Last night we visited the whole family with the Bishop and it was an awesome lesson. They need to get married and Antonio doesn´t have time until after Christmas to get things put together so they will be a January baptism.
As for the rest we are just looking for new people to teach and getting things ready for Christmas. We are making December a mega month in our zone of activities and plans so that we can end the year right. That´s all. Love you!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, November 28, 2011
November 28,2011 Giving Thanks
Well everyone, how are you?
Wow that was a pretty interesting week. Seemed to go by a bit slower than normal but that´s alright.
So our baptisms fell through. Vitor is still going well he just needs a week more to get a little more excited so he´ll be a sure thing this week (I hope). Artur also didn´t get baptized, funny story. His mom has been a little nervous that things were going too quickly and said she´d let him but that she thought he needed more time. Then we taught him that you shouldn´t worship idols (catholic family) and in the middle of the lesson his mom came home and he grabbed one of the saints they had on the wall and tore it up and threw the pieces in her face. So... he needs a little more time to prepare.
Other than them we are really just working to find LOTS of new people. Our plan: The Snowball Effect. We have marked days during the week with all the recent converts for them to invited their friends over and meet us. The idea is that every recent convert turns into two more baptisms and those two baptisms turn into four and so on. They all seemed excited about it so lets cross our fingers and pray.
So Thanksgiving was great. I was on a division with Elder Brady (a huge football player from ogden) and he was determined to eat a ton. So the last family we visited that night made us bologne sandwiches (I´ve actually com to love bologne now) and then when we were walking home we ordered pizza. Not just one, but two. With a huge bottle of Coke! It was so fun but let´s just say I didn´t sleep very well.
Seeing how the holiday passed I feel like I should share some of the things I´m thankful for: Coca-Cola (haha), brasilian bakeries, missionary moms, real moms (and dads), and really good shoe insoles. But the thing of greatest worth that I have in my life is the atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that it is real and I know that he lives and loves me. It is an honor and a priviledge to be here in the Lord´s vineyard. That is what I am most grateful for.
Elder Taggart
Wow that was a pretty interesting week. Seemed to go by a bit slower than normal but that´s alright.
So our baptisms fell through. Vitor is still going well he just needs a week more to get a little more excited so he´ll be a sure thing this week (I hope). Artur also didn´t get baptized, funny story. His mom has been a little nervous that things were going too quickly and said she´d let him but that she thought he needed more time. Then we taught him that you shouldn´t worship idols (catholic family) and in the middle of the lesson his mom came home and he grabbed one of the saints they had on the wall and tore it up and threw the pieces in her face. So... he needs a little more time to prepare.
Other than them we are really just working to find LOTS of new people. Our plan: The Snowball Effect. We have marked days during the week with all the recent converts for them to invited their friends over and meet us. The idea is that every recent convert turns into two more baptisms and those two baptisms turn into four and so on. They all seemed excited about it so lets cross our fingers and pray.
So Thanksgiving was great. I was on a division with Elder Brady (a huge football player from ogden) and he was determined to eat a ton. So the last family we visited that night made us bologne sandwiches (I´ve actually com to love bologne now) and then when we were walking home we ordered pizza. Not just one, but two. With a huge bottle of Coke! It was so fun but let´s just say I didn´t sleep very well.
Seeing how the holiday passed I feel like I should share some of the things I´m thankful for: Coca-Cola (haha), brasilian bakeries, missionary moms, real moms (and dads), and really good shoe insoles. But the thing of greatest worth that I have in my life is the atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that it is real and I know that he lives and loves me. It is an honor and a priviledge to be here in the Lord´s vineyard. That is what I am most grateful for.
Elder Taggart
Monday, November 21, 2011
November 21, 2011 Referrals of Gold
Dear Everyone,
Remember how last week I told you that we got some referrals on Sunday? Well turns out these people are super elect and we are going to baptism two of them this week! Artur and Vitor!
Artur is a 16 year old who is good friends with recent convert Marcelo. Artur loved Church and when we went to visit him after he said, "I really want to serve a mission. Do I need to get baptized before I can go?" Haha! It was awesome! He has so much desire. He suffers from a learning disability and he feels really limited by his own comprehension (sp?) of things. He wants to go alot fast than his brain legs are carrying him. It is so cool that he has so much desire. When we went to teach him the word of wisdom he said he had never drunken coffee in his life because he didn´t like it and didn´t feel like it was something that was good for him. Elect? We are also teaching his mom and sister. His mom Vera is really open but we can´t teach her as much because she works so she´ll be for December. When we asked her how she thought she could get an answer she said, "Well the only way to actually feel like the baptism is right is by doing it so I don´t think I would ever really know unless I get baptized." Is sister is kind of a stinker. Her name is Sthefanie, yes that is how you spell it. She says she Catholic even though she never goes to church.
Vitor is our other miracle. He is the little brother of Pamela, one of the young women in the ward. He is super shy and is 8 years old but is really smart. His mom was never baptized but has a testemony that the church is true, so she is helping him a lot and even taught him how to pray and is reading and explaining the Book of Mormon to him. She can´t be baptized at the moment because she recently got back together with her ex and they aren´t married. He couldn´t come to church this week but sent us a message saying that even though he didn´t got to church this week he still wants to be baptized on Saturday.
This week we had a ton of work to do. We are teaching a few good families that we are trying to prepare for a 'December to Remember' and so we are running all over the place. The familiy that is progressing the most is Antonio, Zenita, Caroline, and Joyce. They are super good but the thing with families is that everyone seems to progress at different rates. The whole family went to church this week for the first time. Antonio loved it because he feels like religion today has turned into a big marketing scheme and he didn´t feel like The Church of Jesus Christ should be a business. Zenita is interesting. She loves us so much but doens´t really understand that we are there for the whole family, not just the kids. Caroline makes me a little nervous. She is a really beautiful young woman who for some reason always tries to sit next to me on their couch. Last night was way funny because I sat down and she sat next to me again. I was pretty much glued at the arm of the couch trying to sit as far away from her as possible. Then my comp sat on the other side of the room (laughing at me) and I said, "I have to sit next to him." Then I almost fell off the couch. Joyce is pretty much a spaz and loved playing the primary. We are planning on going to the Cartorio to mark a wedding date this week. We are trying to establish a baptismal date for Christmas Eve with them so cross your fingers.
Happy to report that our recent converts Iara and Anthony are super integrated and everyone in the ward loves them! Iara is already participating fully in Releif Society which is a miracle (Releif Society is pretty much a make or brake investigators thing in Brasil, maybe even the world, because most of the woman are straight up crazy). They are in the ward choir and everything. It´s awesome!
Hm... What else interesting happened this week? I don´t really know. We are working so much that all the days kind of just melt together. Anyway, that´s it then. Love you all!
Elder M.W. Taggart
Remember how last week I told you that we got some referrals on Sunday? Well turns out these people are super elect and we are going to baptism two of them this week! Artur and Vitor!
Artur is a 16 year old who is good friends with recent convert Marcelo. Artur loved Church and when we went to visit him after he said, "I really want to serve a mission. Do I need to get baptized before I can go?" Haha! It was awesome! He has so much desire. He suffers from a learning disability and he feels really limited by his own comprehension (sp?) of things. He wants to go alot fast than his brain legs are carrying him. It is so cool that he has so much desire. When we went to teach him the word of wisdom he said he had never drunken coffee in his life because he didn´t like it and didn´t feel like it was something that was good for him. Elect? We are also teaching his mom and sister. His mom Vera is really open but we can´t teach her as much because she works so she´ll be for December. When we asked her how she thought she could get an answer she said, "Well the only way to actually feel like the baptism is right is by doing it so I don´t think I would ever really know unless I get baptized." Is sister is kind of a stinker. Her name is Sthefanie, yes that is how you spell it. She says she Catholic even though she never goes to church.
Vitor is our other miracle. He is the little brother of Pamela, one of the young women in the ward. He is super shy and is 8 years old but is really smart. His mom was never baptized but has a testemony that the church is true, so she is helping him a lot and even taught him how to pray and is reading and explaining the Book of Mormon to him. She can´t be baptized at the moment because she recently got back together with her ex and they aren´t married. He couldn´t come to church this week but sent us a message saying that even though he didn´t got to church this week he still wants to be baptized on Saturday.
This week we had a ton of work to do. We are teaching a few good families that we are trying to prepare for a 'December to Remember' and so we are running all over the place. The familiy that is progressing the most is Antonio, Zenita, Caroline, and Joyce. They are super good but the thing with families is that everyone seems to progress at different rates. The whole family went to church this week for the first time. Antonio loved it because he feels like religion today has turned into a big marketing scheme and he didn´t feel like The Church of Jesus Christ should be a business. Zenita is interesting. She loves us so much but doens´t really understand that we are there for the whole family, not just the kids. Caroline makes me a little nervous. She is a really beautiful young woman who for some reason always tries to sit next to me on their couch. Last night was way funny because I sat down and she sat next to me again. I was pretty much glued at the arm of the couch trying to sit as far away from her as possible. Then my comp sat on the other side of the room (laughing at me) and I said, "I have to sit next to him." Then I almost fell off the couch. Joyce is pretty much a spaz and loved playing the primary. We are planning on going to the Cartorio to mark a wedding date this week. We are trying to establish a baptismal date for Christmas Eve with them so cross your fingers.
Happy to report that our recent converts Iara and Anthony are super integrated and everyone in the ward loves them! Iara is already participating fully in Releif Society which is a miracle (Releif Society is pretty much a make or brake investigators thing in Brasil, maybe even the world, because most of the woman are straight up crazy). They are in the ward choir and everything. It´s awesome!
Hm... What else interesting happened this week? I don´t really know. We are working so much that all the days kind of just melt together. Anyway, that´s it then. Love you all!
Elder M.W. Taggart
Monday, November 14, 2011
November 14, 2011 Home Improvement
Hey Everyone!
Well this was an awesome week! I would send you all pics but none of the LAN houses let you send pics anymore.
The main focus this week was Anthony and Iara. It was a race to the finish line with their baptism because at the last minute Iara started having a really hard time to quit smoking and her exhusband suddenly got back in the picture. We visited them every day. She is such a cute lady. We got there and she always had something fresh out of the oven for us to eat. One day she made us lasagna, the next meat stuffed pancakes, and the day of the interview she ordered pizza. They both made it in the end and it was an awesome baptism. There were a ton of people there including Anthony´s dad who was against the whole thing but in the end went to show his support for his son. They are super integrated with the ward too. Iara has already read all the the books that have been given to her (Principles of the Gospel, Daughters in His Kingdom, etc.) and she is devouring O Livro de Mórmon. She is totally the next releif society president.
One of our worries was that we wouldn´t have very many people to teach after the baptism but miraculously a ton of people that we had never met before showed up and they are all really interested! Families!
During the week a bunch of suprises showed up at our door. The mission office bought us a bunch of stuff for our house: new washing machine and new beds! We have absolutely no time during the week to do anything in house so today we spent the whole morning doing home improvement. We threw out a ton of old furniture that we aren´t using, including a moldy old bed frame that scared me to death when I lifted up the cover. We put in all the new stuff and cleaned up a bit. It was needed.
Anyway, I didn´t get transferred! I´m so happy. Elder Christensen are putting together a December to Remember with a ton of families to be baptized and I will spend Christmas in an area where I actually know and love the people. This year is going to be so much better than last!
Stay cool,
Elder Taggart
Well this was an awesome week! I would send you all pics but none of the LAN houses let you send pics anymore.
The main focus this week was Anthony and Iara. It was a race to the finish line with their baptism because at the last minute Iara started having a really hard time to quit smoking and her exhusband suddenly got back in the picture. We visited them every day. She is such a cute lady. We got there and she always had something fresh out of the oven for us to eat. One day she made us lasagna, the next meat stuffed pancakes, and the day of the interview she ordered pizza. They both made it in the end and it was an awesome baptism. There were a ton of people there including Anthony´s dad who was against the whole thing but in the end went to show his support for his son. They are super integrated with the ward too. Iara has already read all the the books that have been given to her (Principles of the Gospel, Daughters in His Kingdom, etc.) and she is devouring O Livro de Mórmon. She is totally the next releif society president.
One of our worries was that we wouldn´t have very many people to teach after the baptism but miraculously a ton of people that we had never met before showed up and they are all really interested! Families!
During the week a bunch of suprises showed up at our door. The mission office bought us a bunch of stuff for our house: new washing machine and new beds! We have absolutely no time during the week to do anything in house so today we spent the whole morning doing home improvement. We threw out a ton of old furniture that we aren´t using, including a moldy old bed frame that scared me to death when I lifted up the cover. We put in all the new stuff and cleaned up a bit. It was needed.
Anyway, I didn´t get transferred! I´m so happy. Elder Christensen are putting together a December to Remember with a ton of families to be baptized and I will spend Christmas in an area where I actually know and love the people. This year is going to be so much better than last!
Stay cool,
Elder Taggart
Monday, November 7, 2011
November 7, 2011 Avante, Avante!
Dear Everyone,
Wow I am super tired. We just finished our fiesta zone activity. We had some of the wardies help us out and make mexican tacos and we all played uno! It was so much fun! It almost didn´t happen. Reason 1: We got to the chapel and the gas was out. 'Someone' had accidentely left the gas on when they were trying to heat up the baptismal water and the gas ran out. I really hope it wasn´t me but I can´t remember. Reason 2: Well... I don´t really remember. I just know that everything worked out in the end and it was way fun. They don´t eat avacado like we do. Here they eat it with sugar and in sweet stuff but one of the women in the ward made guacamole!!! Yum!
Anyway this week was good. We are still working with a bunch of families and the bishop in our ward is super pleased with us. He is starting to help us out a lot more. All the members trust us now and we are starting to work with everyone. It´s so cool to see the whole ward working together (and it´s so much easier too)!
This week Iara and Antony are going to get baptized. She is fighting her smoking habits but she is determined to succeed before the baptism. We have a ton of families we are teaching who are all really liking the message but NO ONE in Brasil is married so we are going to have to get them all married. So pretty much we are going to have not just a white Christmas, we´re going to have a white December.
Well there isn´t really much more to say that I can remember other than the fact that Elder Christensen is the most interesting comp I´ve had so far. This week alone he fell down the stairs and had an 'accident' while running to the bathroom. I have never had so many crazy people walk up to me in the street either. It´s just super fun right now. Haha!
Elder Taggart
--
Wow I am super tired. We just finished our fiesta zone activity. We had some of the wardies help us out and make mexican tacos and we all played uno! It was so much fun! It almost didn´t happen. Reason 1: We got to the chapel and the gas was out. 'Someone' had accidentely left the gas on when they were trying to heat up the baptismal water and the gas ran out. I really hope it wasn´t me but I can´t remember. Reason 2: Well... I don´t really remember. I just know that everything worked out in the end and it was way fun. They don´t eat avacado like we do. Here they eat it with sugar and in sweet stuff but one of the women in the ward made guacamole!!! Yum!
Anyway this week was good. We are still working with a bunch of families and the bishop in our ward is super pleased with us. He is starting to help us out a lot more. All the members trust us now and we are starting to work with everyone. It´s so cool to see the whole ward working together (and it´s so much easier too)!
This week Iara and Antony are going to get baptized. She is fighting her smoking habits but she is determined to succeed before the baptism. We have a ton of families we are teaching who are all really liking the message but NO ONE in Brasil is married so we are going to have to get them all married. So pretty much we are going to have not just a white Christmas, we´re going to have a white December.
Well there isn´t really much more to say that I can remember other than the fact that Elder Christensen is the most interesting comp I´ve had so far. This week alone he fell down the stairs and had an 'accident' while running to the bathroom. I have never had so many crazy people walk up to me in the street either. It´s just super fun right now. Haha!
Elder Taggart
--
Monday, October 31, 2011
October 31, 2011 I'm so Happy
Hey Everyone,
I am so happy! I feel so much closer to the lord and I can feel his hand so much more in my life. The last few weeks have been truly amazing and I have been learning so much about my purpose and who I am in the eternal scheme of things. I know that God loves me and all of his children. It truly is an honor to be here in this great work to help others be clean of there sins so that they can recieve mercy at the judgment day.
This week was great. We started teaching a really awesome family. Iara is a recently single mother and she lives with her son Antony. He is best friends with one of the ward youth and that´s how me met the family. The lessons are going incredibly. At first Iara just wanted Antony to be baptized was a little resistent to be baptized herself but we told her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. When we went back she said that while she was reading she couldn´t stop thinking about temple sealings (the gospel principles topic on Sunday) and she realized that in order to be with Antony after this life she needed to be baptized in the right form so that she can be sealed to her son for time and all eternity in the temple. Then this weekend her sister passed away and she is even more determined to follow Christ.
Marlene and Pedro were going to be baptized on the fifth but they had to go to a family wedding instead of Church so it looks like they will be for the 12th instead. She is commited to live the word of wisdom now and they are both super excited to follow Christ into the waters of baptism. Pedro is so funny. One day his drunk dad was there and he was saying a bunch of bad stuff about us and Pedro got up and started yelling, "Can you read dad!?! Look at their name tags! Who do they represent!?! Jesus Christ!!! Respect them!" Might I remind you that he is eight-years-old. They are really incredible.
Adeline unfortunately decided to take a break from the lessons for a while. She got back together with her exhusband and is going to church with him. She said that she still feels like she hasn´t found the right place yet (which is exactly what we are trying to help her with) but that she is feeling really confused right now. She told us that she is going to call us when she is ready to start investigating seriously. We felt oddly good after the lesson. Even though she stopped investigating we left on a really good note with the door wide open for her to come back and find out more. I feel like it probably just isn´t the right time for her but someday a couple of lucky elders will be able to help her family better than we could.
We had a mission wide meeting this week with Elder Claudio R. M. Costa, area president of Brasil. He was really good and he and his wife talked to us about how God fulfils the just desires of worthy servants´ hearts and that if we truly give 100% we will receive the blessings. After he had a meeting with all of the LZs and we talked a lot about the Resgate program (I don´t know what it is called in English.) It seems like things might finally get moving on that and that he is going to be really firm with the stake leadership to get things functioning the way they should. What a blessing he will be for Brasil.
I had the priveledge to do a baptismal interview in Jardim das Rosas for a young woman that I had helped get ready for baptism. Her name is Lilian and her mom was baptized last week. The first time I taught her in an exchange and she was being so difficult. I had to call her out and really wake her up to the fact that her salvation is on the line. What a difference a few weeks and some good personal revelation seeking makes. She was so well prepared and the interview was amazing. She said that it meant a lot that I did the interview for her and when she prayed the spirit was burning in the room.
Saturday was the baptism of Marcelo. Imagine what a hard situation he is in: 17, his parents don´t support him in going to church, and his closest contact to the Church is his less active neighbors who are kind of crazy. It was a miracle his dad signed the baptismal form. He was so ready, we didn´t even have to teach him because he has been going to church alone ever since he was 10. At the baptism the young all put some money together and gave him some white dress shirts and ties to weat to chruch. He was already interviewed to receive the priesthood and started his mission preparation and forms with the bishop right after his confirmation. What a stud! All the young women are fighting to try to date him now too. HAHA!
Anyway, we are teaching some other families (complete families, as in with men who can receive the priesthood and divide the ward) that we are getting prepared for December already. And everyday I´m getting closer and closer to the Savior. The only thing that bugs me is that I´m figuring out all this stuff out now when I have only a little over half a year left in the field. I wish I could go back in time and reuse all the time I wasted... :P haha!
Love you all!
Elder MacLane Winsor Taggart
I am so happy! I feel so much closer to the lord and I can feel his hand so much more in my life. The last few weeks have been truly amazing and I have been learning so much about my purpose and who I am in the eternal scheme of things. I know that God loves me and all of his children. It truly is an honor to be here in this great work to help others be clean of there sins so that they can recieve mercy at the judgment day.
This week was great. We started teaching a really awesome family. Iara is a recently single mother and she lives with her son Antony. He is best friends with one of the ward youth and that´s how me met the family. The lessons are going incredibly. At first Iara just wanted Antony to be baptized was a little resistent to be baptized herself but we told her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. When we went back she said that while she was reading she couldn´t stop thinking about temple sealings (the gospel principles topic on Sunday) and she realized that in order to be with Antony after this life she needed to be baptized in the right form so that she can be sealed to her son for time and all eternity in the temple. Then this weekend her sister passed away and she is even more determined to follow Christ.
Marlene and Pedro were going to be baptized on the fifth but they had to go to a family wedding instead of Church so it looks like they will be for the 12th instead. She is commited to live the word of wisdom now and they are both super excited to follow Christ into the waters of baptism. Pedro is so funny. One day his drunk dad was there and he was saying a bunch of bad stuff about us and Pedro got up and started yelling, "Can you read dad!?! Look at their name tags! Who do they represent!?! Jesus Christ!!! Respect them!" Might I remind you that he is eight-years-old. They are really incredible.
Adeline unfortunately decided to take a break from the lessons for a while. She got back together with her exhusband and is going to church with him. She said that she still feels like she hasn´t found the right place yet (which is exactly what we are trying to help her with) but that she is feeling really confused right now. She told us that she is going to call us when she is ready to start investigating seriously. We felt oddly good after the lesson. Even though she stopped investigating we left on a really good note with the door wide open for her to come back and find out more. I feel like it probably just isn´t the right time for her but someday a couple of lucky elders will be able to help her family better than we could.
We had a mission wide meeting this week with Elder Claudio R. M. Costa, area president of Brasil. He was really good and he and his wife talked to us about how God fulfils the just desires of worthy servants´ hearts and that if we truly give 100% we will receive the blessings. After he had a meeting with all of the LZs and we talked a lot about the Resgate program (I don´t know what it is called in English.) It seems like things might finally get moving on that and that he is going to be really firm with the stake leadership to get things functioning the way they should. What a blessing he will be for Brasil.
I had the priveledge to do a baptismal interview in Jardim das Rosas for a young woman that I had helped get ready for baptism. Her name is Lilian and her mom was baptized last week. The first time I taught her in an exchange and she was being so difficult. I had to call her out and really wake her up to the fact that her salvation is on the line. What a difference a few weeks and some good personal revelation seeking makes. She was so well prepared and the interview was amazing. She said that it meant a lot that I did the interview for her and when she prayed the spirit was burning in the room.
Saturday was the baptism of Marcelo. Imagine what a hard situation he is in: 17, his parents don´t support him in going to church, and his closest contact to the Church is his less active neighbors who are kind of crazy. It was a miracle his dad signed the baptismal form. He was so ready, we didn´t even have to teach him because he has been going to church alone ever since he was 10. At the baptism the young all put some money together and gave him some white dress shirts and ties to weat to chruch. He was already interviewed to receive the priesthood and started his mission preparation and forms with the bishop right after his confirmation. What a stud! All the young women are fighting to try to date him now too. HAHA!
Anyway, we are teaching some other families (complete families, as in with men who can receive the priesthood and divide the ward) that we are getting prepared for December already. And everyday I´m getting closer and closer to the Savior. The only thing that bugs me is that I´m figuring out all this stuff out now when I have only a little over half a year left in the field. I wish I could go back in time and reuse all the time I wasted... :P haha!
Love you all!
Elder MacLane Winsor Taggart
Monday, October 24, 2011
October 24, 2011 The Little Engine That Could
Hey World!
Well recently I have been feeling a lot like the little engine that could (one of my favorite childhood memories). Our area is being a little hard right now but we see so many miracles and I have been receiving personal revelation like crazy. I have never felt so capable on my mission than I do right now but the hard part is that almost all of our appointments are falling through and we have very few people to teach. We are just chuggin up the hill and pretty soon it will all pay off.
This Saturday we´re going to baptize Marcelo! He is a young man who has been going to church forever but never got baptized. We´ve been trying to visit him forever but he never was home when we marked with him. We finally got a hold of him and just asked him when he wanted to be baptized and it all kind of fell into place perfectly. Yeah miracles!
Unfortunately mircale Kelli decided not to take the visits anymore. She said that she doesn´t have anymore time and that right now she needs to calm down a bit before she makes any commitments. We tried but to be a good missionary you have to go with the shepard approach instead of the sheep dog technique.
We got an amazing referral from a family in the ward this week. Iara and Antony are great. The first time we visited them Antony said the closing prayer and cried because he felt so good. They both went to church too!
I did an exchange with Elder Mather too. He is finishing his mission right now. He was way cool because he was so smiley. All of the people we visited commented about how good he made them feel. He also talked with EVERYONE in the street and we got some really good contacts.
That is pretty much it for the week! Thanks for the love!
Elder Taggart
Well recently I have been feeling a lot like the little engine that could (one of my favorite childhood memories). Our area is being a little hard right now but we see so many miracles and I have been receiving personal revelation like crazy. I have never felt so capable on my mission than I do right now but the hard part is that almost all of our appointments are falling through and we have very few people to teach. We are just chuggin up the hill and pretty soon it will all pay off.
This Saturday we´re going to baptize Marcelo! He is a young man who has been going to church forever but never got baptized. We´ve been trying to visit him forever but he never was home when we marked with him. We finally got a hold of him and just asked him when he wanted to be baptized and it all kind of fell into place perfectly. Yeah miracles!
Unfortunately mircale Kelli decided not to take the visits anymore. She said that she doesn´t have anymore time and that right now she needs to calm down a bit before she makes any commitments. We tried but to be a good missionary you have to go with the shepard approach instead of the sheep dog technique.
We got an amazing referral from a family in the ward this week. Iara and Antony are great. The first time we visited them Antony said the closing prayer and cried because he felt so good. They both went to church too!
I did an exchange with Elder Mather too. He is finishing his mission right now. He was way cool because he was so smiley. All of the people we visited commented about how good he made them feel. He also talked with EVERYONE in the street and we got some really good contacts.
That is pretty much it for the week! Thanks for the love!
Elder Taggart
Monday, October 17, 2011
October 17, 2011 Six Days of Rain and Counting
Dear Everyone,
Hey!!!!! Wow that week just flew by didn´t it? Well things are going really well here and even though I´ve already been here in Pirajussara almost five months, I´m just beginning to really love it here and could stay here a little bit longer even.
Monday night we had a family home evening with some members named Jean and Lili. They invited their neighbor Roberto. I had actually already met him once when we doing contacts he was way rude in the contact but during the FHE he really opened up. He started to cry because his life isn´t what he wants it to be. We tried to mark with him but he works everyday and it´s hard to find him at home so he didn´t mark a lesson.
Tuesday I did an exchange with Elder Redford in Jardim das Rosas. Elder Redford is on his last transfer so is way trunky but is an amazing missionary! He is helping us in the zone alot because we are trying to change basically everything and he is helping us organize our plans. During the exchange we just kind of went after new investigators and did contacts. At one point we were doing a contact with a bunch of young dudes in the streat and they were making fun of our accents but Elder Redford just played along and in the end we marked one of them for baptism! haha! It was great. It started to rain at night.
Wednesday, still raining. It was Kid´s Day in Brasil (the most commercial holiday I have every seen). We ate lunch with Elton, Adriana, and Mariana. They made the best Lasagna that I have ever eaten! It was incredible! We also got to teach our newest elect Marlene and her super smart son Pedro. She is awesome. We taught them about the Restoration and during the lesson she was paying such good attention. When I was explaing the first vision I told her how Joseph Smith asked Christ which church was true and I said, "Do you know what Christ said?" and she was on the edge of her seat and asked, "What did he say?" "He said that none of the Churches were true." Her reply was hilarious! Her eyes opened real big and she said, "No! What are we going to do?" Then we explained the rest of the lesson and she accepted everything. She is going to be baptized on November 5th.
Thursday, raining even harder. We did an exchange with the Elders in Jardim Kennedy. I stayed with Elder Brady who is brand spanking new in the field and he has that fire in his belly to get out there and help the whole world. It was great! We taught hardly anyone and he would not get discouraged. At night it was pouring rain and at about 8:40 I was telling him we should just go home and he was like, "No I have contacts we can go visit!" haha! We both we completely soaked when we got home that night. I think God was happy with us because when we ordered pizza they sent us a chocolate pizza for free.
Friday, still raining hard. Nothing real interesting happened.
Saturday, still raining. The rain ruined everything! We had a ton of visits marked and we had members ready to go out with us but everyone fell through because of the weather. Then at night we had an 'only on the mission' experience. We had a member with us to visit Marlene but the power went out in her viela so we had to walk in pitch dark to get to here house and half-way through we found out that there was a mudslide in the viela that had blocked the path so we couldn´t get to her house. That´s Brasil for you.
Sunday, still raining. No one told us that it was daylight savings time so we got up and went to church for our meeting with the Bishop and thsacrament meeting was starting! We had planned to go get our investigators but we didn´t have time so in the end we only had Marcelo who will be baptized on the 29th. Count your blessings.
Today still raining. We went on a little adventure this morning. Elder Christensen had to go grab some of his stuff in his old area so the Elders there left the keys with us. We tried to play a trick on them so we made lunch in their house and as we were walking out the door to leave with the pots and plates in the sink they got home. (Don´t worry, they are Elders we both know well and we are all good friends.) It all turned out well and we got to hang out with them a little. Then we headed back to our house. Now I´m going to take a nap while it´s still raining.
Elder MacLane Taggart
Hey!!!!! Wow that week just flew by didn´t it? Well things are going really well here and even though I´ve already been here in Pirajussara almost five months, I´m just beginning to really love it here and could stay here a little bit longer even.
Monday night we had a family home evening with some members named Jean and Lili. They invited their neighbor Roberto. I had actually already met him once when we doing contacts he was way rude in the contact but during the FHE he really opened up. He started to cry because his life isn´t what he wants it to be. We tried to mark with him but he works everyday and it´s hard to find him at home so he didn´t mark a lesson.
Tuesday I did an exchange with Elder Redford in Jardim das Rosas. Elder Redford is on his last transfer so is way trunky but is an amazing missionary! He is helping us in the zone alot because we are trying to change basically everything and he is helping us organize our plans. During the exchange we just kind of went after new investigators and did contacts. At one point we were doing a contact with a bunch of young dudes in the streat and they were making fun of our accents but Elder Redford just played along and in the end we marked one of them for baptism! haha! It was great. It started to rain at night.
Wednesday, still raining. It was Kid´s Day in Brasil (the most commercial holiday I have every seen). We ate lunch with Elton, Adriana, and Mariana. They made the best Lasagna that I have ever eaten! It was incredible! We also got to teach our newest elect Marlene and her super smart son Pedro. She is awesome. We taught them about the Restoration and during the lesson she was paying such good attention. When I was explaing the first vision I told her how Joseph Smith asked Christ which church was true and I said, "Do you know what Christ said?" and she was on the edge of her seat and asked, "What did he say?" "He said that none of the Churches were true." Her reply was hilarious! Her eyes opened real big and she said, "No! What are we going to do?" Then we explained the rest of the lesson and she accepted everything. She is going to be baptized on November 5th.
Thursday, raining even harder. We did an exchange with the Elders in Jardim Kennedy. I stayed with Elder Brady who is brand spanking new in the field and he has that fire in his belly to get out there and help the whole world. It was great! We taught hardly anyone and he would not get discouraged. At night it was pouring rain and at about 8:40 I was telling him we should just go home and he was like, "No I have contacts we can go visit!" haha! We both we completely soaked when we got home that night. I think God was happy with us because when we ordered pizza they sent us a chocolate pizza for free.
Friday, still raining hard. Nothing real interesting happened.
Saturday, still raining. The rain ruined everything! We had a ton of visits marked and we had members ready to go out with us but everyone fell through because of the weather. Then at night we had an 'only on the mission' experience. We had a member with us to visit Marlene but the power went out in her viela so we had to walk in pitch dark to get to here house and half-way through we found out that there was a mudslide in the viela that had blocked the path so we couldn´t get to her house. That´s Brasil for you.
Sunday, still raining. No one told us that it was daylight savings time so we got up and went to church for our meeting with the Bishop and thsacrament meeting was starting! We had planned to go get our investigators but we didn´t have time so in the end we only had Marcelo who will be baptized on the 29th. Count your blessings.
Today still raining. We went on a little adventure this morning. Elder Christensen had to go grab some of his stuff in his old area so the Elders there left the keys with us. We tried to play a trick on them so we made lunch in their house and as we were walking out the door to leave with the pots and plates in the sink they got home. (Don´t worry, they are Elders we both know well and we are all good friends.) It all turned out well and we got to hang out with them a little. Then we headed back to our house. Now I´m going to take a nap while it´s still raining.
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, October 10, 2011
October 10, 2011 American Companion
Hey Everyone!
Wow, this week was so amazing! Like I told you Elder J. Melo was transfered and on Tuesday i received my new companion... drum roll please... Elder Christensen! WoHoo! We have mutual friends at BYU and actually knew each other before the mission a little so we both were way excited to be companions. He´s from Washington and is a 6 foot tall red head. They actually didn´t even tell him that he was being transfered so after the transfer meeting we had to go to his old area and get all of his stuff.
I have already learned so much with him and we have had an explosion of personal revelation and revelation about how we should run our zone. It was so nice to feel the spirit so strong to help us create plans and confirm in our hearts that we are on the right track. We are going to start following Preach My Gospel to the letter and begin putting in practice all of the programs that Pres. Monson has been sending out that no one in our mission is doing. I kind of feel like we all just need to listen to the prophet and get on the ark, so to speak, or we´re all going to drown here.
I personally realized that I needed to change alot this week because I was completely neglecting the Doctrine of Christ. To tell the truth I wasn´t even teaching it to people. I think we get so worked up with the restoration that we forget about the atonement sometimes. Right now we´ve started marking people for baptism without even teaching the restoration fully all because we are getting people excited to follow Christ and recieve forgiveness for their sins. There is a phrase I like a lot that I´m taking to heart in one of the Preach My Gospel DVDs that says, " Having faith in Joseph Smith isn´t important. Having faith in Jesus Christ is important. What´s important about Joseph Smith is that we know he´s the prophet who restored the Church of Christ." If we focus on Christ more than anything else then we will have more success and truly represent him.
Like I said we had a lot of miracles this week. I just want to talk about one of them named Kelli. Friday during our planning session is when we decided to put all of our new plans to work so we went out there and we made a contact with a young woman named Kelli who asked us to pass by her house that night. We went there and taught her about how she can have a new start and receive forgiveness for her sins by following Christ and being baptized. She accepted to be baptized at the end of the month and then on Saturday she watched a baptism and got way excited. She was saying, "I can´t wait for my turn!" This is just one example of the incredible changes that are happening in our area now that we are truly preaching Christ.
I am so happy right now because I really feel like I represent my lord and savior Jesus Christ. I know that his atonement is real because this week I experienced it by making changes in my life and repenting of how I neglected him. I know that this Church is his and that we are so blessed to live in the fulness of times and be guided by a prophet. I love this gospel and I love you all so much. Keep praying for me.
Elder MacLane Winsor Taggart
Monday, October 3, 2011
October 3, 2011 The Mission is Going Crazy
Dear Everyone,
I have NO time to write today so sorry in advance. All I have to say is that the mission is going crazy. We had transfers this weekend and everyone in my zone was transfered... except me... I will spend 6 months here, here we go. I´ll take the advice of my favorite fish voiced by Ellen: Just keep swimming. Everyone thought that I would be transferred and Elder J. Melo would stay but he was released as a ZL and I will train a new ZL. Well that´s all. Just a note to everyone: The bankers and the mailmen here in Brasil are on strike so everything is going way slow in those areas.
Elder MacLane Taggart
I have NO time to write today so sorry in advance. All I have to say is that the mission is going crazy. We had transfers this weekend and everyone in my zone was transfered... except me... I will spend 6 months here, here we go. I´ll take the advice of my favorite fish voiced by Ellen: Just keep swimming. Everyone thought that I would be transferred and Elder J. Melo would stay but he was released as a ZL and I will train a new ZL. Well that´s all. Just a note to everyone: The bankers and the mailmen here in Brasil are on strike so everything is going way slow in those areas.
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, September 26, 2011
September 26, 2011 It's the Climb!
Hey Everyone,
Well hey there world. How are you all doing? Good? That´s just great! This week we got back on on our feet and are building up our speed again.
Monday night we found some amazing families as a result of the Finding the Fold activity we did on Sunday. The first family is Adeline and her children. Her mother Arlete was baptized but Adeline never was because they left the church when she was seven. She was super receptive to the message and they accepted a baptismal date in the first visit! We also found a family that is part member. Antonio and Vera we getting ready for baptism but they needed to get married and things just kind of fell apart so they never got baptized. Some of the kids were baptized but now they have another daughter with the right age too.
Tuesday was good. Elder Farris gave an amazing district meeting about the importance of the Book of Mormon. We discussed how the Book of Mormon is the source of solutions of any sort of doubt or question in respect to the restored gospel and how we need to us it whenever possible to teach. After the district meeting we did a BLITZ in Catanduva to help them find more people to teach. Everyone in the district was there and just talked to people for about two hours to find the elects in that area.
Wednesday we visited Francisco and Josefa. They are a couple that we have been visiting but it had never worked out well enough to actually teach them a lesson. We finally got the two of them together and taught them about the restoration of the gospel and Josefa got way excited and they also accepted a baptismal date! Francisco needs a little more help than Josefa but why not right?
Saturday we remembered some of our old investigators, Sergio and Durvalina. Remember her? She´s that woman that said she knew it was true but didn´t want to get baptized. We remembered because it was the day of their wedding that we helped organize before we stopped visiting them so we decided to pass by and congradulate them. They freaked out (in a good way) when they saw us and told us how much they missed our visits. We told them we´d visit them again this week. Hopefully Durvalina is ready to accept the gospel now.
Sunday was really good. Adeline went to church and loved it! After lunch we had another Finding the Fold activity with all the missionaries in the Catanduva ward. It was way more organized than ours and we visited a lot of people that really want to come back to church. I think it is so interesting to work with inactive people because usually they really want to go back but they are just super scared for some reason.
Today we got up and cleaned our house... ugh. I got stuck with the bathrooms. We have one bathroom that we use next to our bedroom and then there is the bathroom downstairs that we usually don´t even open the door because even before I was in the area it was a disaster. The toilet is broken so when you flush it all leaks onto the floor, how do I know? Because the floor is stained yellow, yeah... gross. Anyway I managed to make is squecky clean and then I quickly made a 'Danger: Do Not Enter' sign to put on the door. Hopefully I will never have to open that door again.
That´s the sitch!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Well hey there world. How are you all doing? Good? That´s just great! This week we got back on on our feet and are building up our speed again.
Monday night we found some amazing families as a result of the Finding the Fold activity we did on Sunday. The first family is Adeline and her children. Her mother Arlete was baptized but Adeline never was because they left the church when she was seven. She was super receptive to the message and they accepted a baptismal date in the first visit! We also found a family that is part member. Antonio and Vera we getting ready for baptism but they needed to get married and things just kind of fell apart so they never got baptized. Some of the kids were baptized but now they have another daughter with the right age too.
Tuesday was good. Elder Farris gave an amazing district meeting about the importance of the Book of Mormon. We discussed how the Book of Mormon is the source of solutions of any sort of doubt or question in respect to the restored gospel and how we need to us it whenever possible to teach. After the district meeting we did a BLITZ in Catanduva to help them find more people to teach. Everyone in the district was there and just talked to people for about two hours to find the elects in that area.
Wednesday we visited Francisco and Josefa. They are a couple that we have been visiting but it had never worked out well enough to actually teach them a lesson. We finally got the two of them together and taught them about the restoration of the gospel and Josefa got way excited and they also accepted a baptismal date! Francisco needs a little more help than Josefa but why not right?
Saturday we remembered some of our old investigators, Sergio and Durvalina. Remember her? She´s that woman that said she knew it was true but didn´t want to get baptized. We remembered because it was the day of their wedding that we helped organize before we stopped visiting them so we decided to pass by and congradulate them. They freaked out (in a good way) when they saw us and told us how much they missed our visits. We told them we´d visit them again this week. Hopefully Durvalina is ready to accept the gospel now.
Sunday was really good. Adeline went to church and loved it! After lunch we had another Finding the Fold activity with all the missionaries in the Catanduva ward. It was way more organized than ours and we visited a lot of people that really want to come back to church. I think it is so interesting to work with inactive people because usually they really want to go back but they are just super scared for some reason.
Today we got up and cleaned our house... ugh. I got stuck with the bathrooms. We have one bathroom that we use next to our bedroom and then there is the bathroom downstairs that we usually don´t even open the door because even before I was in the area it was a disaster. The toilet is broken so when you flush it all leaks onto the floor, how do I know? Because the floor is stained yellow, yeah... gross. Anyway I managed to make is squecky clean and then I quickly made a 'Danger: Do Not Enter' sign to put on the door. Hopefully I will never have to open that door again.
That´s the sitch!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, September 19, 2011
September 19, 2011 Finding the Fold
Hey World!
Well one more week has flown by! I can´t believe how fast time goes, it´s crazy! This was a good week.
Monday was a normal work day because P-day switched to Wednesday when we went to the temple. We visited a really scary woman named Marilza. She is a witch. She said that she sold her soul to the Devil in order to try to kill her ex-husband and that she had the Devil’s baby, named Lucifer (I guess she doesn´t know that Lucifer is the Devil). We tried to talk to her about baptism but she said she´ll only be able to reconcile with God when her ex-husband dies and she is free from her evil contract. Interesting... haha!
On Tuesday we did a Blitz in the Sister´s area to help them find a few people to teach. They sent us to a rich neighborhood (bad idea) so we didn´t really get a bunch of contacts but I´m glad we were able to help them a bit. That night we went back to our area and taught a new couple we found named Sergio and Vanessa. Vanessa is pregnant and about ready to burst. They are really smart and open but they need to get married before anything can really happen.
We went to the temple on Wednesday! I was really needing a celestial getaway so it was just what the doctor ordered. It was an amazing session and I read by Patriarchal Blessing in the Celestial Room. I had my eyes opened to a few things, really awesome. After the temple we went to the Churrascaria and ate a ton of meat and then went to Walmart for donuts! haha.
Thursday we started teaching a referral named Ingrid. She was excommunicated for the Jehovah´s Witnesses and now is kind of against organized religion. We talked to her about the Book of Mormon and a little about the restoration of the gospel. She said she would not accept any commitments and I followed up with, "But will you read and pray about the Book of Mormon?" She said yes and I whispered to Elder Melo, "commitment accepted." We also visited an elect couple named Adan and Amanda but in the middle of the visit her drunk dad walked in and the Spirit flew out the window. In the end they didn´t accept another appointment because her dad was watching. It was a really sad experience.
But Saturday was baptism day for Mariana. We visited her everyday this week to wrap everything up and it all went so smoothly. The big question was whether her brother Elton would baptize her. The bishop interviewed him during the week but didn´t give us an answer because he wanted to talk to his old bishop. We were waiting there before the baptism and when the bishop walked in he said, "Elton you can go change your clothes. You´re going to baptize her." We all freaked out and were so happy! It was amazing to be a part of this whole process. We were able to help Elton and Adriana come back to church and be part of Mariana´s baptism; I´m so grateful for the experience of bringing that family that I love so much make such important steps in the Gospel.
Sunday was complicated and exciting. We had our 'Finding the Fold' activity with the men of the ward and all the missionaries of our zone. Everyone was given about 5 less active families to find and grab information. It wasn´t as organized as it should have been but in the end a ton of families were visited and we recieved a ton of referrals that we are going to visit this week. The new focus that Pres. Pinho is trying to pass is to grab families less actives and baptize their families. Let´s do this!
Thanks for the love and support,
Elder M. Winsor Taggart
Monday, September 12, 2011
September 12, 2011 Split Divisions
Hey World,
Wow, that week flew by! Alright so let´s get started.
Tuesday I did a division with Elder Farris. It was pretty interesting. He is our new District Leader. We had a lot of success in our area and everything went really smoothly. I need to help him out a bit in the leadership department but he has a great spirit and will help Elder J. Oliveira.
Wednesday we had (another) leadership training. Everyone had questions about baptismal requirements and in the end we found out that there aren´t going to be any other requirements other than what is written in Preach My Gospel. "Follow the spirit" is the right way to go but unfortunately not everyone knows how to do that.
Thursday we did another division with Elder J. Silva and Elder Peterson. I went to their area and worked with Elder Peterson. He is a brand new missionary and has an interesting story. He was born in the US but as a child his family moved to Brasil, then when he was a teenager they moved back to the US and now he is serving here in Brasil. HAHA! He speaks English and Portuguese fluently so he has no problems in the communication department. He has a lot to learn still so we´re going to keep a good eye on him.
Remember Priscila? The woman we baptized right when I got in the area? Well she recieved a calling in the ward! I was so happy when I found out. I really have had the opportunity to be with their family in the whole process of conversion and now they are normal members of the church! It was awesome!
We had a miracle baptism fall into our laps this week. Elton and Adriana are a less active couple that we have been working with for a few weeks now and Elton´s sister accepted to be baptized! The baptism is marked for Saturday, maybe will happen next week but either way it´s going great with her!
We are working to find new investigators and build a new teaching group. This sunday we are going to do an overhall with the whole ward to visit ALL of the less active members registered in the ward to find all the families that need to be completed and update the ward records. Everyone is really excited and should give us a good boost.
Well, that´s it for now! Love you all!
Elder MacLane W. Taggart
--
Wow, that week flew by! Alright so let´s get started.
Tuesday I did a division with Elder Farris. It was pretty interesting. He is our new District Leader. We had a lot of success in our area and everything went really smoothly. I need to help him out a bit in the leadership department but he has a great spirit and will help Elder J. Oliveira.
Wednesday we had (another) leadership training. Everyone had questions about baptismal requirements and in the end we found out that there aren´t going to be any other requirements other than what is written in Preach My Gospel. "Follow the spirit" is the right way to go but unfortunately not everyone knows how to do that.
Thursday we did another division with Elder J. Silva and Elder Peterson. I went to their area and worked with Elder Peterson. He is a brand new missionary and has an interesting story. He was born in the US but as a child his family moved to Brasil, then when he was a teenager they moved back to the US and now he is serving here in Brasil. HAHA! He speaks English and Portuguese fluently so he has no problems in the communication department. He has a lot to learn still so we´re going to keep a good eye on him.
Remember Priscila? The woman we baptized right when I got in the area? Well she recieved a calling in the ward! I was so happy when I found out. I really have had the opportunity to be with their family in the whole process of conversion and now they are normal members of the church! It was awesome!
We had a miracle baptism fall into our laps this week. Elton and Adriana are a less active couple that we have been working with for a few weeks now and Elton´s sister accepted to be baptized! The baptism is marked for Saturday, maybe will happen next week but either way it´s going great with her!
We are working to find new investigators and build a new teaching group. This sunday we are going to do an overhall with the whole ward to visit ALL of the less active members registered in the ward to find all the families that need to be completed and update the ward records. Everyone is really excited and should give us a good boost.
Well, that´s it for now! Love you all!
Elder MacLane W. Taggart
--
Monday, September 5, 2011
September 5, 2011 Learning to Pick Yourself Up
Dear Everybody,
Well this week was a bit stressful but I´m learning that sometimes you just have to let things go and move on. The week started off slow because on Tuesday we had Zone Leader Council and once again Pres. Pinho talked about the printing off the graphics incident in front of everyone. It was a good training. It´s so wierd now. I realized today that I only have 9 months left on the mission! That is just crazy. I realized I was old at the council also because I am one of the oldest zone leaders and there are a bunch of new people that I have never met on the mission.
Wednesday was Mission Leadership Training. It got pretty crazy. Pres. Pinho is changing EVERYTHING and they announced a bunch of changes to the rules and expectations here. Everyone was confused and didn´t understand (partly because everyone was indoctrinated with Pres. Jackson and Pres. Pinho is the opposite). It almost turned into a yelling match because everyone was disagreeing with eachother. Even the Assistants were contradicting eachother. In the end Pres. Pinho had to mark another training for this week to explain and get everyone on the same boat. For anyone that only had one mission president, you´re lucky because it is super hard ajusting and learning how to do things in a completely different way. I almost feel like I am being brainwashed and I have to forget everything I already learned about missionary work. But whatever, Pres. Pinho has the keys and I am in a position where I have to represent him so I better learn fast and get moving.
The rest of the week was challenging and has put us in an interesting situation. We started the week with 10 people marked for baptism this month and we finished the week with two. Practically everyone we were teaching fell through. Have you ever felt so frustrated that you just wanted to yell and cry at the same time but you couldn´t do either? That is how I felt Sunday night. But I´m learning that I can´t let myself get disapointed. I don´t have the ability to force anyone to do anything they don´t want to do even if they know they should, that´s part of God´s plan. Unfortunately not everyone is going to return to live with God. Not everyone is going to be happy for eternity. I´m always reminded of a saying that Nana gave me that is hanging up in my room back home which says "What we do in life, echoes in eternity" by Maximus. What we do today is defining our eternity and each and everyone of us has the personal responsibility to do what we know is right and if we don´t we´ll have to answer in front of God why we didn´t and Christ isn´t going to be able to do anything more to help us than what he already did. I can only show people the way and they have to follow. Maybe right now isn´t just the right moment for our old investigators or maybe I´ll have to testify against them on the Judgement Day, either way I did my part. Even though these people didn´t accept to follow the answers God gave them there is always someone else waiting, we just have to find them. Now we need to get out there and find the people that are ready for a commitment with God.
I know I seem ticked off right now but it really is true. I´m learning how to move on and pick myself up when difficult stuff happens. I know that next week I´ll probably have 20 emails waiting for me to give me some comfort. haha! Anyway, I don´t have much else to say. Thanks for the love and support. I love you all.
Elder MacLane Winsor Taggart
Well this week was a bit stressful but I´m learning that sometimes you just have to let things go and move on. The week started off slow because on Tuesday we had Zone Leader Council and once again Pres. Pinho talked about the printing off the graphics incident in front of everyone. It was a good training. It´s so wierd now. I realized today that I only have 9 months left on the mission! That is just crazy. I realized I was old at the council also because I am one of the oldest zone leaders and there are a bunch of new people that I have never met on the mission.
Wednesday was Mission Leadership Training. It got pretty crazy. Pres. Pinho is changing EVERYTHING and they announced a bunch of changes to the rules and expectations here. Everyone was confused and didn´t understand (partly because everyone was indoctrinated with Pres. Jackson and Pres. Pinho is the opposite). It almost turned into a yelling match because everyone was disagreeing with eachother. Even the Assistants were contradicting eachother. In the end Pres. Pinho had to mark another training for this week to explain and get everyone on the same boat. For anyone that only had one mission president, you´re lucky because it is super hard ajusting and learning how to do things in a completely different way. I almost feel like I am being brainwashed and I have to forget everything I already learned about missionary work. But whatever, Pres. Pinho has the keys and I am in a position where I have to represent him so I better learn fast and get moving.
The rest of the week was challenging and has put us in an interesting situation. We started the week with 10 people marked for baptism this month and we finished the week with two. Practically everyone we were teaching fell through. Have you ever felt so frustrated that you just wanted to yell and cry at the same time but you couldn´t do either? That is how I felt Sunday night. But I´m learning that I can´t let myself get disapointed. I don´t have the ability to force anyone to do anything they don´t want to do even if they know they should, that´s part of God´s plan. Unfortunately not everyone is going to return to live with God. Not everyone is going to be happy for eternity. I´m always reminded of a saying that Nana gave me that is hanging up in my room back home which says "What we do in life, echoes in eternity" by Maximus. What we do today is defining our eternity and each and everyone of us has the personal responsibility to do what we know is right and if we don´t we´ll have to answer in front of God why we didn´t and Christ isn´t going to be able to do anything more to help us than what he already did. I can only show people the way and they have to follow. Maybe right now isn´t just the right moment for our old investigators or maybe I´ll have to testify against them on the Judgement Day, either way I did my part. Even though these people didn´t accept to follow the answers God gave them there is always someone else waiting, we just have to find them. Now we need to get out there and find the people that are ready for a commitment with God.
I know I seem ticked off right now but it really is true. I´m learning how to move on and pick myself up when difficult stuff happens. I know that next week I´ll probably have 20 emails waiting for me to give me some comfort. haha! Anyway, I don´t have much else to say. Thanks for the love and support. I love you all.
Elder MacLane Winsor Taggart
Monday, August 29, 2011
August 29, 2011 Almost at the Finish Line
Dear Everyone,
Holy Cow this last week was a world of changes here in my area and in the zone. First off, like I said Elder Arnaud was transfered... tear... and on Tuesday I got my new companion! Elder J. Melo! We have the exact same time on the mission and as zone leaders and we are already working really well together. He is from Manaus, capital of the Amazonas. He has native ancestors so he looks a little like an Indian. My camera is a little broken so I can´t send any pics to show.
Wednesday we had district meeting. Elder Ferris the new district leader had to renew his visa so I conducted the meeting and suprise! Pres. Pinho showed up to watch our meeting. It was pretty good. I talked about how marking a person for baptism gives them a vision of where they want to go and how they are going to get there. Something cool also happened. President asked us to print off some graphics for the meeting and we were already late to start. I had to choose to say no or to just do it. What did I do? I ran... to the LAN house and printed the papers and ran back. Pres. Pinho keeps saying that I was the most obedient of all the leaders in the mission and he keeps talking about what happened with the whole mission. It´s a little embarrasing but also good to get a little recognition.
This week was all about Cibele! She is freaking elect! Seriously she was the easiest person to baptize until now on my mission. She didn´t have any difficulties. The Lord truly helped us so much by sending her our way because all of our baptisms fell through at the beginning of the month and we would have had 0 but because of her we didn´t go without. She was so ready and when we were finishing up the teaching we asked her way she wanted to be baptized and she said that she saw something in the families of the church that she had never seen before. She said she had never seen such unity and love and that that was exactly what she had been looking for her entire life. She is engaged to a young man who is leaving on his mission in a few months, he´s lucky because she is really beautiful too. haha!
Getting the baptism ready was a little difficult because there was a stake young mens young womens dance the same day and time and we had worked out with the leaders to use the baptismal font and room but at the last minute they changed on us and made the baptismal room a dressing room for the girls. We did the meeting in the Family History Room and then when it was the part of the baptism we had to kick all the girls out for a few minutes. In the end it was super good. At the end of the meeting everyone talked about their baptisms and their testimony. I really well so it was cool to share it with everyone. They all freaked out when I said I was baptized in the Tabernacle.
We also got some really great news about Sergio and Durvalina. They marked the wedding date! Durvalina can finally be baptized after the wedding! This is going to be awesome and we are going to work hard to make it a day to remember for them.
That´s it for this week! I hope everyone is well. I´m praying for you all... so you better be praying for me! haha! Until next week!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Holy Cow this last week was a world of changes here in my area and in the zone. First off, like I said Elder Arnaud was transfered... tear... and on Tuesday I got my new companion! Elder J. Melo! We have the exact same time on the mission and as zone leaders and we are already working really well together. He is from Manaus, capital of the Amazonas. He has native ancestors so he looks a little like an Indian. My camera is a little broken so I can´t send any pics to show.
Wednesday we had district meeting. Elder Ferris the new district leader had to renew his visa so I conducted the meeting and suprise! Pres. Pinho showed up to watch our meeting. It was pretty good. I talked about how marking a person for baptism gives them a vision of where they want to go and how they are going to get there. Something cool also happened. President asked us to print off some graphics for the meeting and we were already late to start. I had to choose to say no or to just do it. What did I do? I ran... to the LAN house and printed the papers and ran back. Pres. Pinho keeps saying that I was the most obedient of all the leaders in the mission and he keeps talking about what happened with the whole mission. It´s a little embarrasing but also good to get a little recognition.
This week was all about Cibele! She is freaking elect! Seriously she was the easiest person to baptize until now on my mission. She didn´t have any difficulties. The Lord truly helped us so much by sending her our way because all of our baptisms fell through at the beginning of the month and we would have had 0 but because of her we didn´t go without. She was so ready and when we were finishing up the teaching we asked her way she wanted to be baptized and she said that she saw something in the families of the church that she had never seen before. She said she had never seen such unity and love and that that was exactly what she had been looking for her entire life. She is engaged to a young man who is leaving on his mission in a few months, he´s lucky because she is really beautiful too. haha!
Getting the baptism ready was a little difficult because there was a stake young mens young womens dance the same day and time and we had worked out with the leaders to use the baptismal font and room but at the last minute they changed on us and made the baptismal room a dressing room for the girls. We did the meeting in the Family History Room and then when it was the part of the baptism we had to kick all the girls out for a few minutes. In the end it was super good. At the end of the meeting everyone talked about their baptisms and their testimony. I really well so it was cool to share it with everyone. They all freaked out when I said I was baptized in the Tabernacle.
We also got some really great news about Sergio and Durvalina. They marked the wedding date! Durvalina can finally be baptized after the wedding! This is going to be awesome and we are going to work hard to make it a day to remember for them.
That´s it for this week! I hope everyone is well. I´m praying for you all... so you better be praying for me! haha! Until next week!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, August 22, 2011
August 22, 2011 Tchau Elder Arnaud e Ola Elder
Dear Everybody,
Wow this week was super busy but I also saw a lot of miracles and am learning about revelation more than ever! The week started out normal enough until 10 minutes before District Meeting on Tuesday President Pinho called me and told me that we had to do something 'different' for the meeting. Pres. Pinho has created a few new measuring systems to track the progress of the areas that are a little different than the past so he wanted us to unite the entire zone and have a council like meeting where we explained the new expectation of baptizing weekly. Our zone has a bit of work to do so the meeting was really intense but instead of everyone getting mad because we all need to be better, we all got really excited to get out there and find the elects of the lord and prepare them for baptism! It was really an effective meeting and the spirit guided the whole thing.
After the meeting we went into an exchange with the Elders of Catanduva. I stayed in Pirajussara with Elder Alves, the District Leader, and we worked até o pó! We found a bunch of new people to teach that seem genuinly interested in the message. We also went to a little party for a recent converts birthday. And had a sub-par family home evening with an eternal investigator and her not-so-interested friends. We gave a message about the importance of family and how they can be eternal. One of the women there said that she doesn´t believe in families after death. I don´t understand how people really believe that the most important thing in the this life would stop with death. Our salvation and exaltation depend on our families!
We also got to visit Cibele. She is going to be baptized this Saturday and is going really well. She already lives the word of wisdom and is reading and praying. This week she finally visited our ward (she´s been going with her boyfriend's family in another stake). Everyone really liked her and they announced her baptism in relief society.
This week we finally started teaching Fransica! She is really great. She lives alone in a little broken down house on a soccer field and is a nurse. She is really lonely and needs friends and we are doing everything that we stay missionaries to her and that the members become her friends. You have to establish your purpose for people before you can become their friends because they usually won´t progress if they just think of you as a blond kid with a pretty accent. We walked with her to church and halfway there she said, "Oops! I left the cake in the oven!" We offered to go back with her but she refused and said we were going to church. Our ward mission leader gave her a ride back home after sacrament and nothing was destroyed.
We had another exchange with the Elders of Jardim das Rosas because I had to interview an investigator, Felipe, for baptism. Rosas hasn´t baptized in over 8 months and we have been working like crazy to get this to happen. It was difficult to do the interview. It was marked for Thursday night and he wasn´t home because his mom forgot and took him downtown, so we marked with his brother to return in the morning. The next morning we arrived and no one was home. We had to undo the exchange and I told them to call him as soon as possible and mark the interview, and half and hour after we got home they called us and said, "Can you guys come back? He´s home now." So we went back and finally did the interview. In the end, Felipe fell... in the WATER! He was baptized and they have more people that are getting ready for baptism too!
Friday another miracle happened. We visited Magali, that woman I talked about last week, and guess what happened? Her boss traded her work schedule and now she can go to church every week! We are going to mark her for baptism for the end of September! Everytime we go there now she does the opening prayer and always cries. She cries a lot but we still love her. haha!
Yesterday went well also. All of the visitors in church were investigators with baptisms marked so we have a bunch of people progressing now. At night we got the transfer call. Elder Arnaud de Sousa was transfered and now we are going to visit a bunch of people for him to say goodbye. He almost cried. I´m sad because we are really good friends and are working well together. Now I´m going to recieve a new companion and if I don´t train a new Zone Leader my options are not looking too good to get someone as good as Elder Arnaud. The only good thing about the transfer is that Elder Arnaud is giving me a bunch of stuff that he doens´t want to take with him. He gave me a brand new suit that his uncle sent him from the states. It fits me almost perfectly, I just need to shorten the arms a little (curse my short arms) and the length of the pants.
Well that´s the week for ya. Pray that I get an awesome companion! (I really should believe that anyone I get will be great... oh well... haha!) Até Mais!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Wow this week was super busy but I also saw a lot of miracles and am learning about revelation more than ever! The week started out normal enough until 10 minutes before District Meeting on Tuesday President Pinho called me and told me that we had to do something 'different' for the meeting. Pres. Pinho has created a few new measuring systems to track the progress of the areas that are a little different than the past so he wanted us to unite the entire zone and have a council like meeting where we explained the new expectation of baptizing weekly. Our zone has a bit of work to do so the meeting was really intense but instead of everyone getting mad because we all need to be better, we all got really excited to get out there and find the elects of the lord and prepare them for baptism! It was really an effective meeting and the spirit guided the whole thing.
After the meeting we went into an exchange with the Elders of Catanduva. I stayed in Pirajussara with Elder Alves, the District Leader, and we worked até o pó! We found a bunch of new people to teach that seem genuinly interested in the message. We also went to a little party for a recent converts birthday. And had a sub-par family home evening with an eternal investigator and her not-so-interested friends. We gave a message about the importance of family and how they can be eternal. One of the women there said that she doesn´t believe in families after death. I don´t understand how people really believe that the most important thing in the this life would stop with death. Our salvation and exaltation depend on our families!
We also got to visit Cibele. She is going to be baptized this Saturday and is going really well. She already lives the word of wisdom and is reading and praying. This week she finally visited our ward (she´s been going with her boyfriend's family in another stake). Everyone really liked her and they announced her baptism in relief society.
This week we finally started teaching Fransica! She is really great. She lives alone in a little broken down house on a soccer field and is a nurse. She is really lonely and needs friends and we are doing everything that we stay missionaries to her and that the members become her friends. You have to establish your purpose for people before you can become their friends because they usually won´t progress if they just think of you as a blond kid with a pretty accent. We walked with her to church and halfway there she said, "Oops! I left the cake in the oven!" We offered to go back with her but she refused and said we were going to church. Our ward mission leader gave her a ride back home after sacrament and nothing was destroyed.
We had another exchange with the Elders of Jardim das Rosas because I had to interview an investigator, Felipe, for baptism. Rosas hasn´t baptized in over 8 months and we have been working like crazy to get this to happen. It was difficult to do the interview. It was marked for Thursday night and he wasn´t home because his mom forgot and took him downtown, so we marked with his brother to return in the morning. The next morning we arrived and no one was home. We had to undo the exchange and I told them to call him as soon as possible and mark the interview, and half and hour after we got home they called us and said, "Can you guys come back? He´s home now." So we went back and finally did the interview. In the end, Felipe fell... in the WATER! He was baptized and they have more people that are getting ready for baptism too!
Friday another miracle happened. We visited Magali, that woman I talked about last week, and guess what happened? Her boss traded her work schedule and now she can go to church every week! We are going to mark her for baptism for the end of September! Everytime we go there now she does the opening prayer and always cries. She cries a lot but we still love her. haha!
Yesterday went well also. All of the visitors in church were investigators with baptisms marked so we have a bunch of people progressing now. At night we got the transfer call. Elder Arnaud de Sousa was transfered and now we are going to visit a bunch of people for him to say goodbye. He almost cried. I´m sad because we are really good friends and are working well together. Now I´m going to recieve a new companion and if I don´t train a new Zone Leader my options are not looking too good to get someone as good as Elder Arnaud. The only good thing about the transfer is that Elder Arnaud is giving me a bunch of stuff that he doens´t want to take with him. He gave me a brand new suit that his uncle sent him from the states. It fits me almost perfectly, I just need to shorten the arms a little (curse my short arms) and the length of the pants.
Well that´s the week for ya. Pray that I get an awesome companion! (I really should believe that anyone I get will be great... oh well... haha!) Até Mais!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, August 15, 2011
August 15, 2011 Oh Me of Little Faith
Well Everyone,
This week I was certainly taught about faith and revelation. Last week I wrote a little bit about how our investigators starting falling through. But we recieved a miracle referral. Cibele is dating a future missionary and after she visited the church with her boyfriend she sent her own name to recieve the missionaries. When we showed up at her house and she saw us she screamed, "You really came!" and ran to open the door. We´ve been teaching her with her boyfriend and she is going to be baptized on the 27th!
Friday morning is when my faith really started to be tested. We had a suprise leadership meeting. I was in a really bad mood this day and was just sitting their thinking, "What now?" Pres. Pinho stood in front of the mission are started to show all the baptismal numbers from every area for the past 2 months and started talking about how we weren´t baptizing enough. He said that we have to baptized weekly! I didn´t believe it! I thought ," This is impossible!" I left that meeting a bit frustrated and had a lost a little of my confidence in myself and in Pres. Pinho BUT the Lord has a funny way of doing things...
That night we found an old investigator named Magali that disappeared a month ago. She was waiting for us to come that night and when we asked who would do the opening prayer she asked is she could. In her prayer she started to cry and thanked God that he had led us back to her home. She has troubles with working on Sunday but we asked her to talk to her boss and without hesitation she said she´ll ask for work off on Sunday´s so that she can become a member of the church. We are planning on baptizing her at the end of next month.
Saturday we had even more miracles. In the morning we were walking and ran into a young man in the ward and his cousin Wallice who visited the church last week. He stopped us and said, "Hey I want to be baptized." And I said, "How about the 3rd?" He accepted. Later that day we returned to teach Jusalino, Juares, Adriano, and Aelson and they we so open to the message and accepted to prepare for baptism for the 17th. Then later we were walking in the street and a woman that we contacted a few weeks ago stopped us and asked why we hadn´t visited her yet. In reality we had been trying to contact her for 2 weeks but she was never home. Her name is Fransica and is a nurse. She had been working everytime we went to her house. Now we marked a visit and she already said that she´s going to start going to Church every other week when she doesn´t have work. Then that night we finally talked to the rest of Pedro´s family and his mom was way confused about the beliefs of the Church so we worked it all out and she asked us to come back Sunday to talk to the whole family.
Sunday they asked me to speak in sacrament meeting. I talked about the Atonement and how Christ suffered for everyone, even people that aren´t baptized. I said that if someone doesn´t know about or accept the Gospel then Christ suffered in vain. I wasn´t planning on burning people but in the end of the talk it just kind of spilled out when I said, "Christ is suffering in vain because our nieghbors don´t live the gospel and it´s not even our nieghbors fault because they don´t know. It´s our fault because we know the truth and aren't sharing it, Christ is suffering because we aren´t sharing the Gospel. I love to be a missionary but I know that I don´t need a little badge to do missionary work." A few people after said that it was really necissary that someone finally say it. I felt super bad after but it already happened so I can´t really do anything about it.
So Sunday after Church we headed over to talk to Pedro´s family and everyone was there, Gildo, Cassia, Pedro, and Luis Felipe (and his sister Maria Eluisa who is 6). We taught the Plan of Salvation and they accepted to be baptized on the 10th! Gildo asked to do the closing prayer. He said, "Thank you God for the baptismal challenge and we are commited to do everything so that we can fulfill it and be baptized on the 10th."
Alright so God showed me that I need to believe in revelation. Pres. Pinho promised us that it is possible to baptize weekly and God is fulfilling that promise. Starting the 27th we have people for 5 weeks getting ready and commited to be baptized! I learned a lot about faith this week. When God makes promises we better believe that they are going to happen. I felt so much joy the past few days becuase of what I learned and the atonement that is making a difference in the lives of all our investigators.
Elder MacLane Taggart
This week I was certainly taught about faith and revelation. Last week I wrote a little bit about how our investigators starting falling through. But we recieved a miracle referral. Cibele is dating a future missionary and after she visited the church with her boyfriend she sent her own name to recieve the missionaries. When we showed up at her house and she saw us she screamed, "You really came!" and ran to open the door. We´ve been teaching her with her boyfriend and she is going to be baptized on the 27th!
Friday morning is when my faith really started to be tested. We had a suprise leadership meeting. I was in a really bad mood this day and was just sitting their thinking, "What now?" Pres. Pinho stood in front of the mission are started to show all the baptismal numbers from every area for the past 2 months and started talking about how we weren´t baptizing enough. He said that we have to baptized weekly! I didn´t believe it! I thought ," This is impossible!" I left that meeting a bit frustrated and had a lost a little of my confidence in myself and in Pres. Pinho BUT the Lord has a funny way of doing things...
That night we found an old investigator named Magali that disappeared a month ago. She was waiting for us to come that night and when we asked who would do the opening prayer she asked is she could. In her prayer she started to cry and thanked God that he had led us back to her home. She has troubles with working on Sunday but we asked her to talk to her boss and without hesitation she said she´ll ask for work off on Sunday´s so that she can become a member of the church. We are planning on baptizing her at the end of next month.
Saturday we had even more miracles. In the morning we were walking and ran into a young man in the ward and his cousin Wallice who visited the church last week. He stopped us and said, "Hey I want to be baptized." And I said, "How about the 3rd?" He accepted. Later that day we returned to teach Jusalino, Juares, Adriano, and Aelson and they we so open to the message and accepted to prepare for baptism for the 17th. Then later we were walking in the street and a woman that we contacted a few weeks ago stopped us and asked why we hadn´t visited her yet. In reality we had been trying to contact her for 2 weeks but she was never home. Her name is Fransica and is a nurse. She had been working everytime we went to her house. Now we marked a visit and she already said that she´s going to start going to Church every other week when she doesn´t have work. Then that night we finally talked to the rest of Pedro´s family and his mom was way confused about the beliefs of the Church so we worked it all out and she asked us to come back Sunday to talk to the whole family.
Sunday they asked me to speak in sacrament meeting. I talked about the Atonement and how Christ suffered for everyone, even people that aren´t baptized. I said that if someone doesn´t know about or accept the Gospel then Christ suffered in vain. I wasn´t planning on burning people but in the end of the talk it just kind of spilled out when I said, "Christ is suffering in vain because our nieghbors don´t live the gospel and it´s not even our nieghbors fault because they don´t know. It´s our fault because we know the truth and aren't sharing it, Christ is suffering because we aren´t sharing the Gospel. I love to be a missionary but I know that I don´t need a little badge to do missionary work." A few people after said that it was really necissary that someone finally say it. I felt super bad after but it already happened so I can´t really do anything about it.
So Sunday after Church we headed over to talk to Pedro´s family and everyone was there, Gildo, Cassia, Pedro, and Luis Felipe (and his sister Maria Eluisa who is 6). We taught the Plan of Salvation and they accepted to be baptized on the 10th! Gildo asked to do the closing prayer. He said, "Thank you God for the baptismal challenge and we are commited to do everything so that we can fulfill it and be baptized on the 10th."
Alright so God showed me that I need to believe in revelation. Pres. Pinho promised us that it is possible to baptize weekly and God is fulfilling that promise. Starting the 27th we have people for 5 weeks getting ready and commited to be baptized! I learned a lot about faith this week. When God makes promises we better believe that they are going to happen. I felt so much joy the past few days becuase of what I learned and the atonement that is making a difference in the lives of all our investigators.
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, August 8, 2011
August 8, 2011 Sinergy
Ola Gente,
This week started out with a ton of meetings. Tuesday morning we had Zone Leader Counsel. It was really good. We managed to target a few topics to focus on with the missionaries this month and I found out that some of my best friends (Elder Griffin, from the not to well know town of Newton, Utah, and Elder Hickenlooper) on the mission were called as Zone Leaders too!
Wednesday we had zone conference. Pres. Pinho is trying to inject some new ideas into the mission so we had a conference completely different from any other that I´ve seen. He is from the business world so he uses lots of words like 'Sinergy'. You honestly need a dictionary. Anyway, we had 10 groups that all focused on different techniques in teaching and rotated so that by the end of the conference we had to be experts of the topics. I was in charge of the topic "Teach People, Not Lessons". It was all about asking questions to discover the necessities of the investigators and then follow the spirit to change the lesson. It was good but I learned that most missionaries teach a bunch of memorized lines that don´t really resolve anything. I tried to help them learn how to adapt but I think it came off like I was burning everyone. A really prideful greeny got super made at me when I was trying to help him and that left me a little ticked. I hope I didn´t make too many enemies that day. Haha!
The week was a little tough as far as the work goes. Naldo has been false with us the past few weeks and his wife told us that he is drinking and smoking more than every. The last time we were teaching him he got up in the middle of the visit and left without expination. When we were walking down the street a few minutes later we saw him drinking in the bar. It really teaches you how important the word of wisdom is and how addicition destroys families.
Robson is also falling through. Whenever we visit his family he stays in him room. He didn´t go to church either because his friends play soccer Sunday mornings. Another soccer related slap in the face came when Antonio Carlos told us he doesn´t want to get baptized until 2014 (when the World Cup will be in Brasil).
It may sound like everything is going wrong right now but we are actually finding some really good investigators. We recieved some golden references that we marked to visit this week so we are going to do our best to get them baptized this month and find even more people for September. We´re also going to set up a stand in some squares with Church material so that the elects come to us instead of us going to them. I´ll let you know how the first one goes next week.
Well that pretty much it for this week. Sorry there isn´t much to say. Love you all!
Elder MacLane Taggart
This week started out with a ton of meetings. Tuesday morning we had Zone Leader Counsel. It was really good. We managed to target a few topics to focus on with the missionaries this month and I found out that some of my best friends (Elder Griffin, from the not to well know town of Newton, Utah, and Elder Hickenlooper) on the mission were called as Zone Leaders too!
Wednesday we had zone conference. Pres. Pinho is trying to inject some new ideas into the mission so we had a conference completely different from any other that I´ve seen. He is from the business world so he uses lots of words like 'Sinergy'. You honestly need a dictionary. Anyway, we had 10 groups that all focused on different techniques in teaching and rotated so that by the end of the conference we had to be experts of the topics. I was in charge of the topic "Teach People, Not Lessons". It was all about asking questions to discover the necessities of the investigators and then follow the spirit to change the lesson. It was good but I learned that most missionaries teach a bunch of memorized lines that don´t really resolve anything. I tried to help them learn how to adapt but I think it came off like I was burning everyone. A really prideful greeny got super made at me when I was trying to help him and that left me a little ticked. I hope I didn´t make too many enemies that day. Haha!
The week was a little tough as far as the work goes. Naldo has been false with us the past few weeks and his wife told us that he is drinking and smoking more than every. The last time we were teaching him he got up in the middle of the visit and left without expination. When we were walking down the street a few minutes later we saw him drinking in the bar. It really teaches you how important the word of wisdom is and how addicition destroys families.
Robson is also falling through. Whenever we visit his family he stays in him room. He didn´t go to church either because his friends play soccer Sunday mornings. Another soccer related slap in the face came when Antonio Carlos told us he doesn´t want to get baptized until 2014 (when the World Cup will be in Brasil).
It may sound like everything is going wrong right now but we are actually finding some really good investigators. We recieved some golden references that we marked to visit this week so we are going to do our best to get them baptized this month and find even more people for September. We´re also going to set up a stand in some squares with Church material so that the elects come to us instead of us going to them. I´ll let you know how the first one goes next week.
Well that pretty much it for this week. Sorry there isn´t much to say. Love you all!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, August 1, 2011
August 1, 2011 Potential Priesthood Holderville
Oi Gente!
Well another week has come and gone. This week really flew by didn´t it? I don´t have too much to talk about today so I´ll keep it short and sweet.
We´re gaining a lot of male investigators finally! They are basically all husbands of members who are finally getting their act together. Robson is married to recent convert Bia. On his birthday he decided to become a "new man" and accepted a baptismal date. He was having some problems with the word of wisdom but now he is pretty much clean. Naldo is another story. He is married to recent convert Veronica. He has major drinking problems so it´s being difficult but everyone is pretty sure he´ll enter the waters on the 20th. Luis Antonio is married to member Vania. His really quite but I like him a lot. He always calls me to sit by him during the sunday school classes. Vania said they have already set a temple goal so we need to get him to baptism fast. Jose is an old investigator who stopped us in the street and has accepted the 27th. He has some mental difficulties as a result of some heavy drug use in the past. We´re going to work with him and get him a little control in his life.
The other major news is that Luis Henrique was baptized on Saturday. His cousin Vinicius baptized him and his whole family (non-members) were there. His mom was balling! It went super well and Marcos the young mens president confirmed him yesterday!
Priscila threw us another birthday party! It´s not even a suprize anymore, haha. She always sends us home with a huge cake too so we´ve been eating cake every morning for breakfast.
July was an awesome month for our zone! We met our goal of 12! It was awesome because last week we had only 6 baptisms and in the final stretch everyone pulled through for a fantastic finish. For the month the mission had 120 baptisms! 30 more than last month and almost 50 more than May! The mission is starting to take flight with Pres. Pinho. Things are really changing (some new strict rules) and the vision of all our missionaries is raising. Missão Interlagos vamos voar!!!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Well another week has come and gone. This week really flew by didn´t it? I don´t have too much to talk about today so I´ll keep it short and sweet.
We´re gaining a lot of male investigators finally! They are basically all husbands of members who are finally getting their act together. Robson is married to recent convert Bia. On his birthday he decided to become a "new man" and accepted a baptismal date. He was having some problems with the word of wisdom but now he is pretty much clean. Naldo is another story. He is married to recent convert Veronica. He has major drinking problems so it´s being difficult but everyone is pretty sure he´ll enter the waters on the 20th. Luis Antonio is married to member Vania. His really quite but I like him a lot. He always calls me to sit by him during the sunday school classes. Vania said they have already set a temple goal so we need to get him to baptism fast. Jose is an old investigator who stopped us in the street and has accepted the 27th. He has some mental difficulties as a result of some heavy drug use in the past. We´re going to work with him and get him a little control in his life.
The other major news is that Luis Henrique was baptized on Saturday. His cousin Vinicius baptized him and his whole family (non-members) were there. His mom was balling! It went super well and Marcos the young mens president confirmed him yesterday!
Priscila threw us another birthday party! It´s not even a suprize anymore, haha. She always sends us home with a huge cake too so we´ve been eating cake every morning for breakfast.
July was an awesome month for our zone! We met our goal of 12! It was awesome because last week we had only 6 baptisms and in the final stretch everyone pulled through for a fantastic finish. For the month the mission had 120 baptisms! 30 more than last month and almost 50 more than May! The mission is starting to take flight with Pres. Pinho. Things are really changing (some new strict rules) and the vision of all our missionaries is raising. Missão Interlagos vamos voar!!!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, July 25, 2011
July 24, 2011 Luis Henrique Saves the Day!
Oi Gente!
Last week I talked a little about the referral that some other missionaries sent us named Luis Henrique and... He is incredible! He already knows everything and is super ready for baptism. We finally managed to visit him Monday night and his family was way nice and accepted us and said that soon they will begin frequenting the church too. They need to get married so for now we can only baptize Luis... Saturday! The young men in the ward did some amazing integration so he is not having any problems transitioning to the new ward. This was truly a huge blessing.
After District Meeting, we went to the Cartorio with Sergio and Durvalina to mark their marriage. So the buracracy in Brasil is even worse than in the United States. We weren´t able to mark a date because Durvalina´s birth certificate is old and the cartorio closest to us requires that all documents are renewed which is really expensive. And another things, Durvalina was born in a little town called middle of nowhere, Brasil so it´s being really difficult to get in contact with the people there to send a new certificate so we´re frozen for now.
Tuesday was my companion´s birthday! Elder Arnaud is now 21! Everyone in the world threw him a party. First Priscila threw him a party. Luckily she is the sweetest and we celebrate my birthday at the same time! Haha! She bought us both new ties and umbrellas. Throughout the day we recieved tons of cake and our last visit was with the recent convert Elena who made us cuscuz. (It´s basically steamed corn meal and it is really good.) She made pork ribs with it so what you do is grab the butter and melt it on top then pour a little of the pork juice on top and eat it with the meat. My favorite brasilian dish is cuscuz. Then when we got home ten minutes later irma bete called us up to thier house and they made us hot dogs and another cake! I don´t think I can handle cake for a while...
Last Sunday we met Pedro´s dad, Gildo, who visited church for the first time. Pedro has been going to church forever but couldn´t be baptized because Gildo didn´t want anything to do with the church because he was catholic. His mom and brother both received answers too but got way disanimated because of Gildo. So Gildo invited us over Friday night and while my comp was in the bathroom he told me that he and the whole family want to follow the same path and be baptized! Holy Miracles! We need to see if they are actually married but for now seems like we are going to baptize a complete family! We danced down the street when we left the visit.
Saturday morning we did a service project cutting the shrubs of an irma but it was almost impossible! The scissors were old and rusty and didn´t cut hardly anything and the ladder was broken too. The shrubs were huge! We worked for 3 hours and didn´t even finish because we had a visit and had to leave.
This morning we had interviews with Pres. Pinho. He showed up 2 hours late so everyone was really antsy and we were all planning to go to a restaurant after but he said we couldn´t do things in groups right when we were getting ready. It was a good interview and he gave Elder Arnaud and me a ride home. He even offered to buy us lunch but my comp rejected it, I almost killed him when we got home! Haha!
Well, things are going really well. Oh and I´ve started losing weight again thanks to an herbal tea I bought. All things are looking up! haha! I hope everyone is happy and healthy! Keep praying for me, it´s working! Peace and Love!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Last week I talked a little about the referral that some other missionaries sent us named Luis Henrique and... He is incredible! He already knows everything and is super ready for baptism. We finally managed to visit him Monday night and his family was way nice and accepted us and said that soon they will begin frequenting the church too. They need to get married so for now we can only baptize Luis... Saturday! The young men in the ward did some amazing integration so he is not having any problems transitioning to the new ward. This was truly a huge blessing.
After District Meeting, we went to the Cartorio with Sergio and Durvalina to mark their marriage. So the buracracy in Brasil is even worse than in the United States. We weren´t able to mark a date because Durvalina´s birth certificate is old and the cartorio closest to us requires that all documents are renewed which is really expensive. And another things, Durvalina was born in a little town called middle of nowhere, Brasil so it´s being really difficult to get in contact with the people there to send a new certificate so we´re frozen for now.
Tuesday was my companion´s birthday! Elder Arnaud is now 21! Everyone in the world threw him a party. First Priscila threw him a party. Luckily she is the sweetest and we celebrate my birthday at the same time! Haha! She bought us both new ties and umbrellas. Throughout the day we recieved tons of cake and our last visit was with the recent convert Elena who made us cuscuz. (It´s basically steamed corn meal and it is really good.) She made pork ribs with it so what you do is grab the butter and melt it on top then pour a little of the pork juice on top and eat it with the meat. My favorite brasilian dish is cuscuz. Then when we got home ten minutes later irma bete called us up to thier house and they made us hot dogs and another cake! I don´t think I can handle cake for a while...
Last Sunday we met Pedro´s dad, Gildo, who visited church for the first time. Pedro has been going to church forever but couldn´t be baptized because Gildo didn´t want anything to do with the church because he was catholic. His mom and brother both received answers too but got way disanimated because of Gildo. So Gildo invited us over Friday night and while my comp was in the bathroom he told me that he and the whole family want to follow the same path and be baptized! Holy Miracles! We need to see if they are actually married but for now seems like we are going to baptize a complete family! We danced down the street when we left the visit.
Saturday morning we did a service project cutting the shrubs of an irma but it was almost impossible! The scissors were old and rusty and didn´t cut hardly anything and the ladder was broken too. The shrubs were huge! We worked for 3 hours and didn´t even finish because we had a visit and had to leave.
This morning we had interviews with Pres. Pinho. He showed up 2 hours late so everyone was really antsy and we were all planning to go to a restaurant after but he said we couldn´t do things in groups right when we were getting ready. It was a good interview and he gave Elder Arnaud and me a ride home. He even offered to buy us lunch but my comp rejected it, I almost killed him when we got home! Haha!
Well, things are going really well. Oh and I´ve started losing weight again thanks to an herbal tea I bought. All things are looking up! haha! I hope everyone is happy and healthy! Keep praying for me, it´s working! Peace and Love!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, July 18, 2011
Lights Back, Water Back, House Clean . . . I'm Ready July 18, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011 1:06 PM
Hey World,
Well last week I wrote to you all about how we didn´t have power in our house. That continued a few more days and the day our lights came back the water was cut... thank you financial secretary. In total we went 9 days without energy and 4 days without water. Luckily we live next to the stake patriarchand his wife, and they let us take showers and fill up water bottles in their house.
Last week I forgot to tell you all about the Festa Junina! Here in Brasil they celebrate all things caipira (red-neck) in June and July. The ward had a huge party on Saturday after Arici´s Baptism. Everyone was dressed up as cowboys and cowgirls with fake freckles. There was a ton of sweet rice, sweet corn, hot dogs, and cake, LOTS of cake. It was so much fun. Unfortunately we left to grab an investigator right before the quadrilia (square dance).
Tuesday was transfers so at district meeting we have a few new faces in the zone. Elder Barbosa and Elder G. Smith are new in the district that I follow-up on with and Elder Nascimento is new in the other district. We´ve been working on a zone t-shirt for a month now and we can´t change the names so unfortunately the new guys won´t be getting shirts and we´ll have to ship the shirts for Elder J. Medeiros and Elder Dressman.
Wednesday was incredible. Priscila invited us to have lunch with her and we showed up and they threw us a party. They were worried that one of us would be transfered so they made a HUGE cake and a delicious lunch. The theme was Justice League because Rafael and Omar call us super heroes. They even dressed up as Superman and Batman! In the end they gave us ties that they panted. They read (translation) "Taggart, Arnoud, and Mendonça = One Familia". It was an incredible day.
Well we´re still working hard to get Marlene in a white jumpsuit and the baptismal font. She has such a strong desire to be baptized but sometimes it´s hard to tell if she really understands everything because she is a little slow. We took her to the baptism of the Sisters in our zone and she loved it and cried. BUT the next day she didn´t go to church because she forgot to set her alarm... frustrating.
Super blessing! I guess the Lord threw us a bone with the whole no lights, no water thing. The Elders from Jd. Clementino called us this week and asked if we were fasting for baptisms because they´ve been teaching a young man for a few weeks and preparing him for baptism but they found out this week that he lives in our area. So they basically gave us a baptism! We still need to work everything out with him and his family (who also want to be baptized). but... Haleluhah!
As you can imagine a house with no energy and no water is hard to clean so today while Elder Arnaud was finishing up the design for the zone t-shirt I cleaned the entire house and did 4 loads of laundry. It was exausting but well worth it because now everything is clean and the spirit will return to our formerly disgusting house. Let´s make this an awesome week!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Hey World,
Well last week I wrote to you all about how we didn´t have power in our house. That continued a few more days and the day our lights came back the water was cut... thank you financial secretary. In total we went 9 days without energy and 4 days without water. Luckily we live next to the stake patriarchand his wife, and they let us take showers and fill up water bottles in their house.
Last week I forgot to tell you all about the Festa Junina! Here in Brasil they celebrate all things caipira (red-neck) in June and July. The ward had a huge party on Saturday after Arici´s Baptism. Everyone was dressed up as cowboys and cowgirls with fake freckles. There was a ton of sweet rice, sweet corn, hot dogs, and cake, LOTS of cake. It was so much fun. Unfortunately we left to grab an investigator right before the quadrilia (square dance).
Tuesday was transfers so at district meeting we have a few new faces in the zone. Elder Barbosa and Elder G. Smith are new in the district that I follow-up on with and Elder Nascimento is new in the other district. We´ve been working on a zone t-shirt for a month now and we can´t change the names so unfortunately the new guys won´t be getting shirts and we´ll have to ship the shirts for Elder J. Medeiros and Elder Dressman.
Wednesday was incredible. Priscila invited us to have lunch with her and we showed up and they threw us a party. They were worried that one of us would be transfered so they made a HUGE cake and a delicious lunch. The theme was Justice League because Rafael and Omar call us super heroes. They even dressed up as Superman and Batman! In the end they gave us ties that they panted. They read (translation) "Taggart, Arnoud, and Mendonça = One Familia". It was an incredible day.
Well we´re still working hard to get Marlene in a white jumpsuit and the baptismal font. She has such a strong desire to be baptized but sometimes it´s hard to tell if she really understands everything because she is a little slow. We took her to the baptism of the Sisters in our zone and she loved it and cried. BUT the next day she didn´t go to church because she forgot to set her alarm... frustrating.
Super blessing! I guess the Lord threw us a bone with the whole no lights, no water thing. The Elders from Jd. Clementino called us this week and asked if we were fasting for baptisms because they´ve been teaching a young man for a few weeks and preparing him for baptism but they found out this week that he lives in our area. So they basically gave us a baptism! We still need to work everything out with him and his family (who also want to be baptized). but... Haleluhah!
As you can imagine a house with no energy and no water is hard to clean so today while Elder Arnaud was finishing up the design for the zone t-shirt I cleaned the entire house and did 4 loads of laundry. It was exausting but well worth it because now everything is clean and the spirit will return to our formerly disgusting house. Let´s make this an awesome week!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, July 11, 2011
July 11, 2011 Dancing in the Dark
Hey Everyone!
Wow, this truly was one of the most interesting weeks of my mission so far! From awesome meetings to crazy egyptian contacts, it was just full of suprizes!
After District Meeting on Tuesday I headed to Jd. Macêdonia for an exchange with Elder Dressman, who is currently on a plane headed back to Utah. It was a way good exchange. I wanted to focus on finding new investigators for them and it went really well. At the end of the night we were walking home and a woman who works for another church stopped us and gave us a referral. We went to contact him and his house was full of his friends who were also interested! I´ve never had someone stop me in the street to give me a referral, and even more it led to five new investigators!
When I got back from the exchange Elder Arnaud de Souza said there was a surpise waiting for me. What was it? The lights are out! The financial secretary of our mission 'forgot' to pay our bill and with Brasilian buracracy it´s been almost impossible to get the lights back on. We´ll make a week in the dark tomorrow. I can´t wash my clothes and we don´t have any food because the fridge doesn´t work. Luckily our neighbors are members and are letting us take warm showers in their house. We´ve been laughing about how romantic it is in our house by candlelight. Haha!
Thursday we had the mission-wide 'Welcome Pres. and Sis. Pinho' meeting! It was amazing! He is the coolest guy on earth. His trainings were incredible and he used a bunch of movies! I loved it!
Saturday we had the baptism of Arici! It went so well and her enitre non-member family watched and loved it. After we had a huge BBQ! It was awesome!
Yesterday was way good too. We needed to find 8 new investigators and in 2 hours we found 3 families that are super interested in the message. On the way home I made a contact with an egyptian man that thought he knew all about the church but he really didn´t know anything. I got kinda mad because he said I don´t know how to speak Portuguese. Whatever he didn´t speak well either!
Anyway my time is up! I love you all!
Elder MacLane Taggart
--
Monday, July 4, 2011
The Fourth of July, 2011 Pinho Arrives
Dear Family and Friends,
The saga of Pinho has begun! Wow, Pres. and Sis. Pinho are way different but are super cool! Pres. Pinho is a business man who has moved 32 times. They lived in Salt Lake for 5 years. He is super excited and has a completely different approach than Pres. Jackson. Sis. Pinho is really cool. She is way stylish, so far I´ve only seen her in 5 in. heels. She doesn´t have much experience with missionary work but is happy to be here.
This week was super busy! We had district meeting on Tuesday, Thursday was Zone Leader Council, and Friday was Leadership Training. Zone Leader Council was a little different. Sis. Jackson always made cinnamon rolls and Sis. Pinho showed up with bread and bologne (SO Brasilian!) It was good because we were actually able to solve some problems.
Leadership training was great! We talked about the Doctrine of Christ and Teaching People, Not Lessons. The only thing about Leadership training that bugs me is that some missionaries are so desperate for Pres. Pinho´s attention that they talk the whole time and by the end you want to tell them to be quiet. I hope I´m not one of them... haha!
We have a few really good investigators going right now. Areci will be baptized this Saturday morning! She´s awesome! Her future mother-in-law is way excited for the baptism and bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting this week saying that we worked a miracle because Areci was going to church but didn´t accept the missionary visits for 2 years and started shortly after I arrived in the area. She buys us pringles everytime we go there now! haha! Pringles are imported from the US so they are really expensive. They are planning a huge Churrasco after the baptism.
Marlene would have been baptized with Areci but something happened with her husband. He doesn´t accept our visits but he told his daughter that he actually likes what we teach. We tried a ton to get him to come to church and listen to the message but I think we pushed him a little too hard and she freaked out on Marlene and she didn´t go to church this week so we need to get back there and help her a bit more.
We have a few new families like Antonio, Eliane, and Gustavo who are a super smart family and are really interested in the message. Margali is another investigator that we have who opened up to us about her hopes for the future and how she knows she needs to find the right path to follow so that she can better her life. The visit was super powerful. Her boyfriend Mario is way interested in the message too but he doesn´t live in our area. Margali wants to start a life with him so we can help them start in the Gospel.
Sergio is a less active who was drinking 5 liters of scotch a day! He has stopped completely because he turned 61 and has to take new medication. He is way different now and it´s helping a lot because his wife Duvalina who was a Jehovah´s Witness for 18 years wants to get baptized. We´re going to help them get married so that she can be baptized.
In other news, I´ve started gaining a little weight again. It seems like every single family we visit makes us cake or something sweet! I can´t do anything about it! AH! What can I do?
Anyway everything is good here on my side of the planet.
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, June 27, 2011
June 27, 2011 Tribute to Pres. and Sister Jackson
Well Gente,
Elder MacLane Taggart
--
Big changes are coming up for us here in Missão São Paulo Interlagos. Tomorrow morning Pres. and Sis. Jackson will be on a plane returning to Utah and our new mission President will be in control. It´s going to be weird writing my weekly letter to the President in Portuguese. President and Sister Jackson will be really missed. They really have been more than just leaders here. They have been the closest thing to family here in Brasil that you could have and they have taught me so much. I´m grateful for the service that they have given during my time here and before.
Anyway this week was pretty interesting. On Tuesday I gave a training for the district I´m following up with about the power for our callings. We read John 15(?):1-16 together and analyzed every verse. We created a web of types of disciples and their characteristics then read about authority in Preach My Gospel. We didn´t have time for a good practice so I opened the meeting up to bearing testimonies. I cried. First time on the mission that I think I really cried. (You´d think I would have cried at a baptism or something, but no.)
Then we had a companion exchange with the Elders of Catanduva. I stayed with Elder J. Oliveira in his area. It was good. A member gave me CDs of a brasilian boy band that is super weird. It´s like Justin Beiber times four. At night we drank a ton of coca-cola. I´ve created a new policy that I´m not going to buy cola anymore. I think this should bring my consumption down a ton and help me get back on the diet train. (PS. It´s hard to lose weight when people make you cake everyday! This is something I´ve learned.)
We found a ton of new families this week. It was awesome! We´ll keep working with them and see who progresses then I´ll tell you about people specific. I don´t want to pass info that doesn´t get completed, like João Batista a few weeks ago that disappeared.
Elder Batista the traveling assistant was in our zone this week and he was going all over the place. He is an awesome missionary and we became friends back in Guarapiranga. He helped us a ton and gave us really good advice on how to lead the zone. June finished with only 4 baptisms in the zone so we need to get on top of things so that July can be incredible. From what we are hearing from the missionaries it should be an awesome month in Campo Limpo!
Our strongest investigators at the moment are Areci and Marlene. They are both marked for the 9th and are keeping all their commitments! It´s awesome! Marlene´s husband never talks to us and I had never seen him until yesterday. I was afraid that he would be scary and huge by the way Marlene talked about him. We met him last night and he´s not scary at all he just isn´t interested in religion.
Yesterday it rained pra carumba! We got soaked on our way home from church and when we grabbed our umbrellas the rain stopped. We walked around the rest of the day with huge umbrellas and it didn´t start raining again.
Today we had another zone activity. Sister Shaha received a bottle of maple syrup (doesn´t exist in Brasil) from her family so we made pancakes and had an Uno tournament! It was way fun!
That´s the news for now! Hope you all liked it! Talk to you soon!
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Monday, June 20, 2011
Here Comes the Tricky Part, June 20, 2011
Well hey there world!
Well I´ve past the one year mark! Can you believe it? Wow! The rest is downhill. I hear the second year is a lot faster than the first so if it is I´ll be home before you know it and maybe before I want to. :P
This week was way busy. Wednesday we had a 'specialized training' with Pres. Jackson and his family. We got there and it was a giant american bbq! They are going home in the next two weeks so they wanted to have a day to spend with us. It was awesome. I kind of got Sister Jackson mad when I asked, "Hey Sister Jackson, where´s the Coke?" Everyone gasped. That´s mission life for you. I didn´t know Coke was a swear word. Anyway it was really a good day.
After, we had an exchange with the Elders from Jardim das Rosas (Rose Garden). I stayed with Elder J. Silva and we pretty much just knocked doors all day.
Thursday was my Hump Day! People aren´t going to call me new on the mission anymore. It was a bad day to celebrate because I was sick (fever of 101). Friday I was feeling a lot better so we ordered pizza at night and listened to EFY aka partied missionary style.
Friday we also had a meeting with the assistants and Pres. Jackson. It was probably the last time I´ll see him on the mission. Wow, that´s really sad. I´ll have to write him my last email in a few minutes too. It´s difficult but part of the work. The Lord´s work doesn´t stop for anyone so you can´t be sad you just have to go with the punches and keep up.
I´ve entitled this email 'Here Comes The Tricky Part' because coming off our baptism of Priscila and her family we´ve got pretty much nothing. We have one woman who is a sure baptism for July but as for that nada. So we are working really hard to find new people. This is the real grind work of the mission. Building up when you´ve got nothing is hard but it is also the part where you grow and your faith is tested the most. I´ve been praying my guts out and we´re seeing stuff happen everyday that really shows how our prayers are heard and answered.
Anyway, I´m simply working myself to death until further notice. Any questions? Haha! Later!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, June 13, 2011
June 13, 2011 Men in White
Hey everyone!
Well this last week was pretty good. Wednesday we went to the Temple! It was great and we did a session with a group of missionaries from the São Paulo North mission. It´s obvious how the missions have different cultures. São Paulo Interlagos (my mission) is all ghetto and flavela so all the missionaries are a little more wild and misbehaved. São Paulo North has better living conditions so all the missionaries are a little uptight. We all ate lunch together.
Our house is a mess so we´ve decided to create some more rules about cleanliness. We have tons of dishes and it was unnecessary so I put a few of them away and my comp thought I had broken them and thrown them out. Our living situation is kind of interesting. Our shower head that heats the water is broken so we are taking showers in our neighbor's house. Our other neighbors have parties that are so loud it´s hard to sleep. We share a laundry area with other neighbors. It´s a big family really...not. haha!
Saturday we baptized Priscila, Rafaela, and Rafael! They were having problems with the Word of Wisdom because they all love coffee but they are the type of people that when they decide to do something they do it. The water heater was broken and it´s been super cold the past few days so the water was freezing! In a city that doesn´t have hardly any water heaters, the few that exist don´t work. But it really was wonderful and their confirmation went smoothy on Sunday.
Now that we have completed our goal for June we have to get some new folks to baptize in July. Our investigators at the moment are either super mole (don´t want commitment) or super complicated so we are looking for new families and so far we´ve found a few good people.
Today we organized the first zone activity of the transfer and it was awesome! We played capture the flag then ate hot dogs. The last part was a pie in the face mission trivia tournament! I had to hand whip the cream which took a while but in the end everyone loved it. I hope it gets them all a little more excited. They have been dead the past few weeks so we are trying to inject a little joy into their rears. This zone is going through some tough times right now but it´s nothing a little TLC can´t take care of.
My Hump Day is coming up! Thursday I make one year on the mission. It just so happens that June 16th is also my mom´s birthday. Happy Birthday mom! I expect presents from you all. Haha just kidding! I can´t believe I´ve already come this far. I still feel like I don´t know anything! Anyway, I only have one more year to give my best to the Lord. Wow!
See you all soon (1 year),
Elder MacLane Taggart
Well this last week was pretty good. Wednesday we went to the Temple! It was great and we did a session with a group of missionaries from the São Paulo North mission. It´s obvious how the missions have different cultures. São Paulo Interlagos (my mission) is all ghetto and flavela so all the missionaries are a little more wild and misbehaved. São Paulo North has better living conditions so all the missionaries are a little uptight. We all ate lunch together.
Our house is a mess so we´ve decided to create some more rules about cleanliness. We have tons of dishes and it was unnecessary so I put a few of them away and my comp thought I had broken them and thrown them out. Our living situation is kind of interesting. Our shower head that heats the water is broken so we are taking showers in our neighbor's house. Our other neighbors have parties that are so loud it´s hard to sleep. We share a laundry area with other neighbors. It´s a big family really...not. haha!
Saturday we baptized Priscila, Rafaela, and Rafael! They were having problems with the Word of Wisdom because they all love coffee but they are the type of people that when they decide to do something they do it. The water heater was broken and it´s been super cold the past few days so the water was freezing! In a city that doesn´t have hardly any water heaters, the few that exist don´t work. But it really was wonderful and their confirmation went smoothy on Sunday.
Now that we have completed our goal for June we have to get some new folks to baptize in July. Our investigators at the moment are either super mole (don´t want commitment) or super complicated so we are looking for new families and so far we´ve found a few good people.
Today we organized the first zone activity of the transfer and it was awesome! We played capture the flag then ate hot dogs. The last part was a pie in the face mission trivia tournament! I had to hand whip the cream which took a while but in the end everyone loved it. I hope it gets them all a little more excited. They have been dead the past few weeks so we are trying to inject a little joy into their rears. This zone is going through some tough times right now but it´s nothing a little TLC can´t take care of.
My Hump Day is coming up! Thursday I make one year on the mission. It just so happens that June 16th is also my mom´s birthday. Happy Birthday mom! I expect presents from you all. Haha just kidding! I can´t believe I´ve already come this far. I still feel like I don´t know anything! Anyway, I only have one more year to give my best to the Lord. Wow!
See you all soon (1 year),
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, June 6, 2011
June 6, 2011 Welcome to Pirajussara
Well I was right about the transfer :P I was sent to Pirajussara in Zona Campo Limpo. It´s a lot closer to the city and has pretty much everything; bank, post office, restaurants, etc. It´s a really big area but I´ve always had huge areas so it´ll be easy to manage, just need to plan smart. This zone has been having really low numbers the past few months and the missionaries here are a little dis-animated so we´re going to get them pumped up and ready to baptize!
My new companion is Elder Arnaud de Souza. He is so awesome! We are getting along really well and have tons of ideas to bring some life back to Campo Limpo. We´re going to make a zone newsletter called O Ceifador (the Harvester) because Campo Limpo means clean field. Clever right? It was my idea. haha! We´ve got some activities planned too. Elder Arnaud is really creative so we´re going to work well together.
We are going to baptize a family this week! Priscila is the mother of Rafael and Rafaela and they are incredible! We already knew they had a problem with coffee so I was kind of nervous to teach the word of wisdom. When we said they couldn´t drink it anymore they all let out a groan and said, "Tchau cafe!" It was awesome. They are going to dive into the baptismal font.
We are also teaching a complicated family. The mother is super catholic, the dad isn´t interested, the son doesn´t care, and the daughter is atheist. Why they continue to accept our visits I don´t know. Last time we started talking about authority and without directly saying it, we said the pope is a false prophet. Yeah, they didn´t like that. haha! They went on vacation so we´ll see how they are doing when they get back.
We are working on building our teaching group right now so we´re knocking a lot of doors. We found an awesome new man named João Batista (John the Baptist). We taught him on Saturday and he went to church on Sunday and has already told us he wants to join the church. We haven´t even taught the Restoration yet! We are going to baptize the baptist!
Another woman named Selia was studying for a college test so we had to do a really quick intro to the message and a short prayer and she started to cry during the prayer. It wasn´t even an incredible prayer and she still started to cry! I think she knows that we´ve got the power. haha!
Anyway, since I´m still getting used to the area so I don´t have a ton to say. If anyone has question please send them my way through email or letter. I´d love to hear from all my people back home.
We´re going to the temple this week so we don´t have lunch marked today. We´re going to eat at Habib´s! It´s a middle eastern fast food place! It´s so good! haha!
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, May 30, 2011
May 30, 2011 Ate Mais Aracati
Well I´ve got news... I´ve been transferred again! I´m not really sure if I´m happy or sad because I really like Aracatí, but I was starting to get sick of some of the people we have to work with. I get the impression that this new area might be tough. This transfer Elder D. Silva and I managed to get 14 baptisms in our zone which was the most in the mission, so I think Pres. Jackson is sending me to a zone that isn´t baptizing much to lift it up a bit, let´s try right?
This week was pretty good. We did a division with Riviera Paulista and I stayed with Elder Nunes. It was great! He is a district leader with a ton of potential, he just gets really soft with his investigators so he hasn´t be baptizing much. I´ve been pushing him and pushing him to go the extra mile and to get tough and I think he learned a bit with me. I learned a lot with him.
We also had an integration activity on Friday that was awesome. We had potato (wow forgot how to spell this word) sack races and a bunch of awesome games. The turn out was a little low but by the end everything was awesome!
The big highlight of the week was the baptism of Aline! It had to be Sunday morning because Robson (her husband) had to work Saturday and he needed to baptize her. SO we filled up the baptismal font Saturday night and slept in the house of the elders that live close to the church. Then we got up at 5:00 am to heat the water, watching sunrise in the Chapel. Everything was perfect! We sang 'Grandios Es Tu' ('Then Sings My Soul') which is her favorite hymn. She was crying the whole time and was confirmed the same day. She is going to be stronger than her husband for sure!
Anyway, I know I don´t have much to say. I´m kind of lost in my thoughts right now because of the transfer. We´re going to Rodizio right now to celebrate. Meat will do me good. :)
Elder MacLane Taggart
Monday, May 23, 2011
May 23, 2011 Here Comes the Bride
Dear Everybody,
Hey world! Wow, one more transfer is almost over. Time flies when you´re super busy all the time. I am going really well and am the happiest I´ve been on my mission so far. Area, companion, everything is going well. This week our Zone passed our monthly baptismal goal of 12. Right now we have 13 with 3 more firm baptisms scheduled for next week, which is really good. The next closest zone has 7. The mission is going through a down period and hasn´t been baptizing much so it´s exciting to be breaking the barrier. If we get these 3 baptisms we´ll reach the pattern of excellence! Elder D. Silva and I are finally seeing the fruits of all our hard work with the missionaries here in Guarapiranga and we are going to complete our area goal of 2 baptisms this week!
Sunday we received a huge blessing. It´s been a struggle to work with our Leader of Missionary Work in our ward because he works so much that he doesn´t really have time to help us. This week he was released from his calling and Irmão Valderi was called! Valderi is an ex-bishop and is super excited about the work. He has already made visits with us 2 times and did a family home evening for our investigators.
Monday was interesting because we took Valderi to Carla and Oliveira´s house. We had a baptism marked for this weekend but when we showed up at their house Carla was drunk. It´s been a while since we followed up about the commandments so they got a bit weak and fell through. But everything is going to work out. They have a really strong desire to join the Church, obviously they have some things to work out but everything should be good for the 18th of June. And even though we didn´t baptism them this week we helped them fulfill another important step, Marriage! They got married Saturday! It was all so fast and we didn´t really manage to organize anything (which turned into a ton of drama with some of the members of the ward) but it was all good in the end. They did invite us to the family party at night so we went and guess what? They were both drunk this time! haha! Some of the members keep saying that they won´t be baptized but I feel like they will. Even though she was drunk, Carla gave a speech at the party about how much we´ve done for them and how much they need us still.
Our amazing investigator is Aline! She is ready for baptism and she will be baptized Sunday morning, really early... She and her husband do family home evening just the two of them every week and she is in the stake choir already. We´re going to do family home evening with them tonight.
We did a division with the Assistants this week too. I stayed in Aracatí with Elder E. Silva (Elder D. Silva´s old companion). It was great! He is an incredible missionary and he´ll be going home next week. During the division I lost our cellphone. We were sitting on the bus and it fell out of my pocket. By the time we got to a phone to call it to see if a good person had found it we realized a bad person had because it was already turned off. I had to pay for a new one.
I am dirt poor right now. We had a change in our accounting system that screwed everything up! I even had a little bit of money saved up for emergencies but when we switched the system they put tons of money on everyone´s account so the next day they emptied out everyone's account. Most of the missionaries (including me) were put into the negative so when more money was put on the account I only got a little bit of money. Right now I have to use my personal card because I don´t have anymore money. Don´t trust the mission secretaries!
Anyway that´s all I got for now. I hope everyone is fine. Love you all and I know that miracles are real.
Elder MacLane Taggart
Hey world! Wow, one more transfer is almost over. Time flies when you´re super busy all the time. I am going really well and am the happiest I´ve been on my mission so far. Area, companion, everything is going well. This week our Zone passed our monthly baptismal goal of 12. Right now we have 13 with 3 more firm baptisms scheduled for next week, which is really good. The next closest zone has 7. The mission is going through a down period and hasn´t been baptizing much so it´s exciting to be breaking the barrier. If we get these 3 baptisms we´ll reach the pattern of excellence! Elder D. Silva and I are finally seeing the fruits of all our hard work with the missionaries here in Guarapiranga and we are going to complete our area goal of 2 baptisms this week!
Sunday we received a huge blessing. It´s been a struggle to work with our Leader of Missionary Work in our ward because he works so much that he doesn´t really have time to help us. This week he was released from his calling and Irmão Valderi was called! Valderi is an ex-bishop and is super excited about the work. He has already made visits with us 2 times and did a family home evening for our investigators.
Monday was interesting because we took Valderi to Carla and Oliveira´s house. We had a baptism marked for this weekend but when we showed up at their house Carla was drunk. It´s been a while since we followed up about the commandments so they got a bit weak and fell through. But everything is going to work out. They have a really strong desire to join the Church, obviously they have some things to work out but everything should be good for the 18th of June. And even though we didn´t baptism them this week we helped them fulfill another important step, Marriage! They got married Saturday! It was all so fast and we didn´t really manage to organize anything (which turned into a ton of drama with some of the members of the ward) but it was all good in the end. They did invite us to the family party at night so we went and guess what? They were both drunk this time! haha! Some of the members keep saying that they won´t be baptized but I feel like they will. Even though she was drunk, Carla gave a speech at the party about how much we´ve done for them and how much they need us still.
Our amazing investigator is Aline! She is ready for baptism and she will be baptized Sunday morning, really early... She and her husband do family home evening just the two of them every week and she is in the stake choir already. We´re going to do family home evening with them tonight.
We did a division with the Assistants this week too. I stayed in Aracatí with Elder E. Silva (Elder D. Silva´s old companion). It was great! He is an incredible missionary and he´ll be going home next week. During the division I lost our cellphone. We were sitting on the bus and it fell out of my pocket. By the time we got to a phone to call it to see if a good person had found it we realized a bad person had because it was already turned off. I had to pay for a new one.
I am dirt poor right now. We had a change in our accounting system that screwed everything up! I even had a little bit of money saved up for emergencies but when we switched the system they put tons of money on everyone´s account so the next day they emptied out everyone's account. Most of the missionaries (including me) were put into the negative so when more money was put on the account I only got a little bit of money. Right now I have to use my personal card because I don´t have anymore money. Don´t trust the mission secretaries!
Anyway that´s all I got for now. I hope everyone is fine. Love you all and I know that miracles are real.
Elder MacLane Taggart
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