June 24, 2012
Fathers Day Letter
Hola Familia y Amigos! ¿Que tal? Ojala todo esta bien.
So this week was my first week in Santa Isabel. It's a lot like my last area seeing as they are right next to each other. The only difference is that we have a huge section of serro or hills. They are basically giant dirt hills where the houses are a lot more humble. One day when I am feeling brave I might take my camera up there so you can all see what it looks like.
This Saturday we did service in a house up there. My job with to take a giant pick ax and hack at the ground to make stairs up to their house, then we used the dirt and rocks to level out the floor of their home. I'll be honest I loved doing service. I could do that all day every day and be so happy with my life.
This area is good. I feel like there is lots of potential. I just have to help my companion feel the same way. She is really depressed, I think she is just letting the constant rejection get her down, which I understand, but the thing is that the mission doesn't get any easier if we sit in our house and cry all day. We aren't going to be blessed with succees if we don't go out there and work hard. Familias de oro aren't going to come knocking on our doors, We have to go out and find them. So that's something I think we will have to work on. My goal is to be super positive. Shower her with compliments and help her have the desire to work harder.
Just don't judge me if this cambio I get fat. I'm trying to leave the house and go running, but sadly I can't leave alone.
I'm actually really excited to work in this area. On Sunday we talked with the Bishop. He told me that this ward has only had two baptisms this whole year and he is really concerned. He is a really good man and has a desire to help the people in the ward. I was really impressed when I asked him "What can we do to help you?" He looked at me and said "Baptize Families." Well then that's what we are going to do.
We meet a women named Maria, her husband (Denis) is an inactive member of the church, She has wanted to get baptized for a long time but she doesn't want to go to church by herself. Her sister in law (so her husband's little sister) is currently on a mission. This has softened Denis´s heart and he is willing to meet with us and to start coming to church. The good news is that they are MARRIED!! Which is a really a big blessing ha-ha. So I'm sure we will be able to help Maria progress to baptism while at the same times bringing her husband and children back to the church. There is nothing better than helping a family become stronger in the gospel!
Father's Day I had a really great experience. I'll be honest I don't like Fathers Day. This Sunday was my first Sunday going to church on Father's Day in 5 years . . . . I was worried how it would be but it wasn't bad. Then Sunday night we had a lesson with a member who has just been coming back to church for about a month now with her husband. I had never meet them before and really knew very little about their situation. My companion just told me that they had been teaching him for about a month now and he just doesn't have the desire to come to church.
Before leaving the house I had an odd impression that I should grab the picture I have of my baptism. It's me and my dad dressed in white right before my baptism.
We got to the lesson and it became obvious why. We taught Ruben the Plan of Salvation again, but this time we focused on his role as a father in this great plan. Then I felt impressed to take out my picture. I told him about my Dad. How he was a convert to the church and how his choice to leave behind the things of the world had blessed my life. We then explained how baptism was an essential step in our progress to live with our heavenly father, and how he could help his daughter who just turned 8 take that step. He was SO excited. He looked at me then at the picture then at me again and said. "What do I need to do?" For me it was a really beautiful experience. Defiantly the best Fathers Day I have had in the last five years.
It's wonderful because right now my Dad isn't here with me, but thanks to the gospel of Jesus Christ I know that I can be with him again, and thanks to the Power of the Priesthood we are an eternal family. It really was a wonderful experience to look at another Father and Daughter and realize that I could be part of the process to help them have the same blessing. HAPPY FATHERS DAY! Seriously could there be a better gift or message then that. (only problem is we have to get him to come to church, get married and then baptized.) But I'm not worried. He is a good man, who loves his family. He has the desire. I'm really excited for this family.
So basically all is well. Pray for me. I'm going to need a lot of patience .
I love you all very much!
Till next week.
Hermana Sadie Jean Taggart
June 12, 2012
Hola Familia y Amigos!
Wow I feel like I have so much to say and so little time to say it. First I have to tell you all about the most epic game of Futbol I've ever played in my LIFE! So Soccer is really popular in Peru, Obviously. The Elders always want to play it on Pdays and normally like the Lame Hermanas that we are, we do something else haha. But last Monday I told Hermana Campbell that we had to play or the Elders would keep thinking we are super lame.
So we played and I will have you know that I made 6 of our 10 goals! O.k. at first it was easy cuz the elders basically parted and let me make the goal. The second goal was a little bit harder I think that they could see that I can somewhat play, but the third goal! OH THE THIRD GOAL! It was beautiful. One of the Elders kicked the ball, but it was too high and it would have gone out of bounds had I not JUMPED IN THE AIR and knocked the ball in the goal WITH MY HEAD! Oh you all should have seen it. I'm pretty sure it looked as beautiful in real life as it did in my imagination because when I turned around the elders were all on their knees! All I could hear was "ASU!" Which is like Peruvian slang for "What now." or "Oh no she didn't." Basically it was a moment of glory for me. Plus I think I earned the Title of Cool Hermana! Sweet.
Too bad It took me 5 weeks to win over the title of Cool Hermana In my zone and now I am getting transferred! I'm super sad!
We have two baptisms this Saturday, one more then next week and then at least one more this month. I'm sad that I won't get to see them progress or be here a little longer to help them make the transition into being members of the church.
I'm getting transferred to Santa Isabel with is right across the street from where I am at right now. I'll be with La Hermana Supo. She is from Peru. I've heard good things about her. Hopefully she likes to exercise. I'm nervous to get a pensionista again. I was really liking just eating what I wanted to eat every day. Oh well. We all have to get fat at some point on our missions.
This week we got to do some spontaneous service. We were knocking doors and a lady answered. She was really forward and somewhat rude and she told us that they were recently moving into their house and they didn't have time and she gestured to the moving truck down the road that had just pulled up with all their stuff. I looked at her and asked if we could help. She just laughed at me and started walking towards the truck. So I did something that made me feel super forward and Peruvian. I followed her. Walked over to the Truck, picked up a box and started helping haha. She seemed a big caught off guard but she let us help. We haled boxes for a little over an hour. We were able to talk with her and her daughters about the church and our mission during the process. Two of our members walked by and saw us and started helping as well. Afterwards she was really grateful and we set up a day to come visit with them and teach them more. And who knows what will happen. Maybe they will listen to us, maybe they will get baptized or maybe they won't, but no matter what happens they have a positive view of the church. It was a really great experience.
Sunday we had a little mini miracle! Lucy came to church! She has been listening to us the 6 weeks we have been here, but she has blown us off for church almost every Sunday because of her health. She can't sleep at nights because of a heart condition that she has. But we promised her that if she would read the Book Of Mormon before she went to bed she would feel peace and be able to sleep and FINALLY Saturday night she read the Book of Mormon on her own and was able to sleep (hopefully because she felt peace and not because it bored her to death haha) but either way she was up and ready Sunday morning when we passed by for her. She bore her testimony about the power of prayer and El Libro de Mormon as we walked to church. Mini Miracle! I think so.
Well I better go. I love you all! Thanks for you love and support.
Till Next Week.
Hermana Sadie Jean Taggart
P.S Courtney. I love you and your obsessive letter writing. Of course we are still friends. A very long spiritual smack down letter is on its way to you. Be ready.
June 11, 2012
June 4, 2012
Hola Familia y Amigos!
So this week was good, I'll start with my spiritual experience for the week. We have been teaching a family for about a month now. A women named Liliana and her two daughters. We had talked to them about baptism two times and they said it was something they would like to do, but they didn't want to agree to a baptism date. So we agreed we would lay off for a couple of lessons and then we would bring it up again. So we started teaching them about the different commandments, they are wonderful, very humble and egger to follow the commandments. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and they accepted without a problem, so that was exciting. So this week we had planned to teach them about the 10 commandments and the Sabbath Day. But when we got to the lessons. Kimico the 19 year old daughter shared an spiritual experience that she had, had with the Book of Mormon. She had a question and she prayed for an answer, after she felt impressed the read the Book of Mormon. She open the book to a random page and started reading and the verse she read had her answer.
After she shared that experience I could tell that we needed to teach about baptism, but I'll be honest I didn't want to. Inviting people to be baptized is always hard for me, I hate making people feel pressured and I just didn't want to do it, but despite the fear that I felt I knew what the Lord wanted us to teach. Hermana Campbell did too. We started in and talked about faith, repentance.. . . and we spent a long time on repentance ha-ha. I think we were both afraid and it was like "o.k. who is going to bring it up." So finally I shared Alma 7:14-15 and we talked about what we needed to do if we have truly repented and Kimico said. . . "Get Baptized." We talked to them for a while. Liliana wants to get baptized, even more then that she wants her daughters to get baptized but she is scared. All her friends are catholic, her families catholic and they don't like that she has been listening to us or coming to church with us. But she loves our lessons, she loves the peace and unity that her family has had ever since they started praying and reading the Book of Mormon. We talked to them and asked them what date they would like to be baptized. Liliana started with dates that are really far in the future things like that and it's hard to explain but a thought came to my mind and I knew what I needed to say. "Liliana the question isn't when do you want to be baptized, the question is when do you want to be cleansed from you sins." She looked at me and there was a long pause then her 16 year old daughter says. "Well how about this Saturday!" ha-ha technically they could have gotten baptized this Saturday but we agreed on the 16th on June.
I'm really excited for this family. They read, pray and come to church together and they are experiencing all the promised blessings that come along with the compromisos that we give. The only thing I worry about is that change. Catholic isn't a religion here, it's a culture. They are excited but they worry about what everyone will think of them. That's why we just really have to help them see that we respect the beliefs of other religions, but anything that is good and true in a church, is in our church, and what they don't have we do have. We have the Book of Mormon another testament of Jesus Christ. So they aren't in the water yet but I have a lot of hopes for this family. They will make amazing members of the church! I'm so excited for them.
This week I also got to use my sign language! We ran into some Deaf people on the street. I waved them down and we started talking. It was funny cuz at first we really didn't understand each other. The sign language here is really different! Even down to the finger spelling. But once we realized that our signs weren't the same we started speaking with gestures. It was amazing how we could have full conversations just with the gestures we were making up. Sadly they both live far away. I was really hoping we might get to teach them. But it was exciting. If nothing else at least it was a contact where the people were nice to us and wanted to talk to me.
So a little culture note about Peru. Or maybe about Latin America in general PDA is WAY too accepted in this country. Seriously. . . You would think we were on the BYU campus with how many couples there are everywhere. But the way the act defiantly isn't BYU approved. Seriously. Everywhere! EVERYWHERE! And I don't just think its cuz I'm a Hermana and I'm deprived or what not ha-ha, it's just the culture, they are very loving. . . in every aspect of the word loving ha-ha.
Also In case you don't understand just how Catholic this culture is, I took a picture for you all. It's a Virgin Maria. . . . made out of bread. Even down to the bread is catholic ha-ha.
Well that's about it for this week. I love you all!
Hermana Sadie Jean Taggart
So this week was good, I'll start with my spiritual experience for the week. We have been teaching a family for about a month now. A women named Liliana and her two daughters. We had talked to them about baptism two times and they said it was something they would like to do, but they didn't want to agree to a baptism date. So we agreed we would lay off for a couple of lessons and then we would bring it up again. So we started teaching them about the different commandments, they are wonderful, very humble and egger to follow the commandments. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and they accepted without a problem, so that was exciting. So this week we had planned to teach them about the 10 commandments and the Sabbath Day. But when we got to the lessons. Kimico the 19 year old daughter shared an spiritual experience that she had, had with the Book of Mormon. She had a question and she prayed for an answer, after she felt impressed the read the Book of Mormon. She open the book to a random page and started reading and the verse she read had her answer.
After she shared that experience I could tell that we needed to teach about baptism, but I'll be honest I didn't want to. Inviting people to be baptized is always hard for me, I hate making people feel pressured and I just didn't want to do it, but despite the fear that I felt I knew what the Lord wanted us to teach. Hermana Campbell did too. We started in and talked about faith, repentance.. . . and we spent a long time on repentance ha-ha. I think we were both afraid and it was like "o.k. who is going to bring it up." So finally I shared Alma 7:14-15 and we talked about what we needed to do if we have truly repented and Kimico said. . . "Get Baptized." We talked to them for a while. Liliana wants to get baptized, even more then that she wants her daughters to get baptized but she is scared. All her friends are catholic, her families catholic and they don't like that she has been listening to us or coming to church with us. But she loves our lessons, she loves the peace and unity that her family has had ever since they started praying and reading the Book of Mormon. We talked to them and asked them what date they would like to be baptized. Liliana started with dates that are really far in the future things like that and it's hard to explain but a thought came to my mind and I knew what I needed to say. "Liliana the question isn't when do you want to be baptized, the question is when do you want to be cleansed from you sins." She looked at me and there was a long pause then her 16 year old daughter says. "Well how about this Saturday!" ha-ha technically they could have gotten baptized this Saturday but we agreed on the 16th on June.
I'm really excited for this family. They read, pray and come to church together and they are experiencing all the promised blessings that come along with the compromisos that we give. The only thing I worry about is that change. Catholic isn't a religion here, it's a culture. They are excited but they worry about what everyone will think of them. That's why we just really have to help them see that we respect the beliefs of other religions, but anything that is good and true in a church, is in our church, and what they don't have we do have. We have the Book of Mormon another testament of Jesus Christ. So they aren't in the water yet but I have a lot of hopes for this family. They will make amazing members of the church! I'm so excited for them.
This week I also got to use my sign language! We ran into some Deaf people on the street. I waved them down and we started talking. It was funny cuz at first we really didn't understand each other. The sign language here is really different! Even down to the finger spelling. But once we realized that our signs weren't the same we started speaking with gestures. It was amazing how we could have full conversations just with the gestures we were making up. Sadly they both live far away. I was really hoping we might get to teach them. But it was exciting. If nothing else at least it was a contact where the people were nice to us and wanted to talk to me.
So a little culture note about Peru. Or maybe about Latin America in general PDA is WAY too accepted in this country. Seriously. . . You would think we were on the BYU campus with how many couples there are everywhere. But the way the act defiantly isn't BYU approved. Seriously. Everywhere! EVERYWHERE! And I don't just think its cuz I'm a Hermana and I'm deprived or what not ha-ha, it's just the culture, they are very loving. . . in every aspect of the word loving ha-ha.
Also In case you don't understand just how Catholic this culture is, I took a picture for you all. It's a Virgin Maria. . . . made out of bread. Even down to the bread is catholic ha-ha.
Well that's about it for this week. I love you all!
Hermana Sadie Jean Taggart
June 3, 2012
New Pictures
 |
| Our zone got to go to the temple. This is us in front of the temple |
 |
| Kenyis baptism |
 |
| Me making a smoothy with a strange (but good) new fruit |
Memorial Day Letter
Hola Amigos y Familia!
Another week come and gone in the mission, This week I reached my seventh month mark! Crazy! Kenyis baptism was this Saturday. Everything went really well, he was super happy. I'm excited for him. He´s going to make a great member, and a great missionary some day!
We found some really great families this week. Lots of people are coming to church and progressing. We have one Mother and her two daughters that have been reading praying and coming to church with us for the past two weeks. The daughters want to get baptized but haven't quite yet agreed to a baptism date. The mom wants to get baptized as well. She just is afraid to. She is an active member of the Catholic church. She has a calling of some sort in a group of people who get together to pray every week and she is scared that if she gets baptized she will lose her friendships in this group of people. I think she will get baptized. She can see the difference that these two weeks has made in her relationship with her daughters. She loves that they are able to talk about the things of God for the first time.
We also found a family contacting. The mom is a member, "technically" she was baptized when she was 13 but really never went to church after that and she doesn't remember any of the basics. We taught them the first lesson last night and her husband loved it. He works close to an LDS church and says that he has always been impressed with what he has seen of the members as they come and go from church. He wants to raise his children in the "Camino de Dios" or the path of God. I'm really excited for them. Hopefully we can reactivate the Mom and help the rest of the family come closer to Christ. After all, that's what we are here for.
In other news, it has officially gotten cold here in Lima! It's weird because the cold here isn't the same kind of cold that we have in Utah. In Utah its freezing, but here it's just wet. It's hard to explain, but in the mornings when we go running I get soaked. And not because I am sweating but just because there is SO MUCH water in the air. Sometimes I can't tell if I need to breathe the air or swallow it. I basically just feel wet and cold all the time. More bad news is that we don't have dryers here for our clothes. They hang out to dry, but in the cold humidity it's pretty much impossible . . . it's all good. It's nice to have a break from walking around in the sun all day. It's just different.
The cold is defiantly playing tricks with my mind. I feel like we should be getting ready for Christmas. The cold weather had me in a serious craving for Christmas music. I fought off the craving for as long as I could. . . but I just couldn't do it anymore. I thought to myself "I know its May, but I'm cold and I want my Christmas music."
Not sure if I mentioned this or not but my mom has officially become a face book stalker ha-ha. She found out how to steal your pictures off of face book and send them to me in emails! I love it! I got to see one of Kayleighs wedding pictures and one of Janaes engagements! I'm so happy for you both! Ah!
So that's about it. Today I am going to send home all the letters that I have been writing all of May ha-ha. So hopefully those of you who have written me will be getting your letters in the next two weeks or so.
All is well here in Lima. This area of San Felpie is small, but there is alot of potential! We have a lot of great ward members who are constantly checking in on our less active members and who are very welcoming to our investigators. This really makes a world of difference!
I hope you are all doing well. Soak up the sun for me these next couple months!
Love you all.
Hermana Sadie Jean Taggart
Another week come and gone in the mission, This week I reached my seventh month mark! Crazy! Kenyis baptism was this Saturday. Everything went really well, he was super happy. I'm excited for him. He´s going to make a great member, and a great missionary some day!
We found some really great families this week. Lots of people are coming to church and progressing. We have one Mother and her two daughters that have been reading praying and coming to church with us for the past two weeks. The daughters want to get baptized but haven't quite yet agreed to a baptism date. The mom wants to get baptized as well. She just is afraid to. She is an active member of the Catholic church. She has a calling of some sort in a group of people who get together to pray every week and she is scared that if she gets baptized she will lose her friendships in this group of people. I think she will get baptized. She can see the difference that these two weeks has made in her relationship with her daughters. She loves that they are able to talk about the things of God for the first time.
We also found a family contacting. The mom is a member, "technically" she was baptized when she was 13 but really never went to church after that and she doesn't remember any of the basics. We taught them the first lesson last night and her husband loved it. He works close to an LDS church and says that he has always been impressed with what he has seen of the members as they come and go from church. He wants to raise his children in the "Camino de Dios" or the path of God. I'm really excited for them. Hopefully we can reactivate the Mom and help the rest of the family come closer to Christ. After all, that's what we are here for.
In other news, it has officially gotten cold here in Lima! It's weird because the cold here isn't the same kind of cold that we have in Utah. In Utah its freezing, but here it's just wet. It's hard to explain, but in the mornings when we go running I get soaked. And not because I am sweating but just because there is SO MUCH water in the air. Sometimes I can't tell if I need to breathe the air or swallow it. I basically just feel wet and cold all the time. More bad news is that we don't have dryers here for our clothes. They hang out to dry, but in the cold humidity it's pretty much impossible . . . it's all good. It's nice to have a break from walking around in the sun all day. It's just different.
The cold is defiantly playing tricks with my mind. I feel like we should be getting ready for Christmas. The cold weather had me in a serious craving for Christmas music. I fought off the craving for as long as I could. . . but I just couldn't do it anymore. I thought to myself "I know its May, but I'm cold and I want my Christmas music."
Not sure if I mentioned this or not but my mom has officially become a face book stalker ha-ha. She found out how to steal your pictures off of face book and send them to me in emails! I love it! I got to see one of Kayleighs wedding pictures and one of Janaes engagements! I'm so happy for you both! Ah!
So that's about it. Today I am going to send home all the letters that I have been writing all of May ha-ha. So hopefully those of you who have written me will be getting your letters in the next two weeks or so.
All is well here in Lima. This area of San Felpie is small, but there is alot of potential! We have a lot of great ward members who are constantly checking in on our less active members and who are very welcoming to our investigators. This really makes a world of difference!
I hope you are all doing well. Soak up the sun for me these next couple months!
Love you all.
Hermana Sadie Jean Taggart
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)