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

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

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

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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

June 27, 2011 Tribute to Pres. and Sister Jackson

Well Gente,

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!

Elder MacLane Taggart

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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

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