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
Monday, October 17, 2011
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
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