Email Letter - 25 March 2009

Hey Fam,

Things are going amazing here. We had two more baptisms on Saturday and then the other Elders that are here in the other Branch had one last night. Our Baptisms were awesome! They went off without a hitch and I have no doubt that the Lord is looking out for us in our work.

We have been working with the list of members trying to clean it up, or take off the people that have moved away or passed away so that we can make it more accurate. The first presidency has also asked that we start working on reactivating men that are not ordained and have sent a plan for us to follow. They want 50% more ordinations than there was the last few years and the plan is to work to get that done before the dedication of the Temple in Cordoba.

What I’m getting at is we are using the list of members and we are baptizing lots of people to reactive those that are already members. We have a few more lined up for the 4th of April which we will do after the second session of conference and before Priesthood. We are excited with how much the members are helping us and keeping the work moving forward.

We are about to call a Branch mission leader and Branch missionaries! It’s so great to have the help that we’ve got. We have just been working hard and we have been finding a lot of people that are excited to listen. We contacted a couple in the street on our way home the other night and they told us that we could go by there house and yesterday we did. They woman has listened to the missionaries before but the man had not. The lesson was awesome and they have two girls that listened as well. We have been looking and praying for a family lately and this was a blessing. We are so excited to go back on Friday and I think that they are excited for conference and the mom and the girls said that they wanted to go to the session for them this Saturday.

A couple weeks ago we starting teaching an English class and we are getting lots of kids coming that need help with homework and stuff like that because classes just started again here. We are hoping to have lots of success finding people to teach from that as well. We have put up signs everywhere and we have been handing out lots of flyers as well. We are excited to see that progressing as well.

I love this work and as much as I miss home I know I’m here to help the Lords work progress. I love you all so much and hope that all is well. Take care. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!!!

Tay

Email Letter - 18 March 2009

Hey Fam,

It’s been a really good week!! We have been working so hard and we are getting blessed and seeing many miracles here. We have two baptisms this Saturday which I have been telling you about and we are so excited for them.

We get a lot of help from the members here with reactivating and they help us a lot with keeping the baptisms active which doesn’t happen very much here. Last week we had 57 in church!! It doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s the most I’ve seen since I was at home. The lord is blessing us tenfold.

Last week we went to one of the old areas in the zone where they just recently took out the elders to clean out their house. We had to load all of the stuff of in a truck and take it to the church to store it for when they put missionaries back in. it was a fun day. The place is called Monte Caceros or in English (baked mountain) ha-ha.

We left here at about noon and got there at about two and starting cleaning and loading stuff up. Luckily we had another companionship go with us to help out. We got it all done in about 2 hours and we had the whole rest of the day to go site seeing because we weren’t allowed to work in a closed area. We went down to the river and took pictures which was cool because this place is so far south that we were taking pictures of Uruguay! I have now in my mission taken pictures of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It was a lot of fun.

This week we don’t have to travel anywhere which I am so excited for. I’m sick of sitting in hot busses driving across the middle of nowhere. Other than our trip nothing much has happened. I love you all lots and think of you often. Take care!!

Tay

Email Letter - 11 March 2009

Hey Fam,

It’s been a good week but a lot of traveling. I’m starting to feel a lot better though. We went to Resistencia like I said last week and it was really good. President talked to us about Easter and told us that he wants to have a "white" Easter. Every companionship in the mission has to find at least one family to baptize in the month of April. The cool thing is that we have been praying and praying to find one and on Monday I think we found it! They are a very young couple with two little kids. We found them just at the right time. They are looking to change their lives and have been looking for a church to help them with it. It was an awesome lesson and I can’t wait to go back to see if they have read and prayed. They seemed so happy to have us there and it was a miracle that we found them just at the right time.

We moved our two baptisms from the 14th to the 21st because they came a little late to church. They are so excited though. It’s a 16 year old girl and her little cousin named Walter. He’s 10. They passed their interviews and are ready to go.
Yesterday we went to Corrientes capital for zone conference which was my first one outside of Chaco.


It was a lot different because the chapel is a lot smaller but it was still good. President spoke about how we need to work with the members more and use more scriptures in our lessons to help people understand better. He also told us that we talk way too much and don’t let the spirit in to help us. He helped us learn lots of different ways to help with that and practiced with us. It was really good and very helpful. It was also my first conference with Sister Missionaries there. I ran into one that is from Pleasant Grove and knows Aimee and Emalee and she know Michelle Markham (Bott) as well. It was fun to talk to her for a couple of minutes.

The area is great and the members are working hard to help us out. I’m so excited to be here and I know that we are going to be blessed. That’s all for this week. I love you guys. Take care!

Tay

Email Letter - 04 March 2009

Hey Family,

I got to Paso De Los Libres early Thursday morning last week just dead tired and not feeling well. I’m still pretty sick and my comp Elder Rapp is as well. I’m very excited to be here and I have a feeling that we are going to have a lot of success here. We had a baptism on Saturday of a 15 year old kid named Alfredo. He is way awesome and will help a bunch.

I’m excited not to have a calling other than missionary in this area. We have a full functional Branch here. My comp was branch president in his last area as well so we both have lots of experience and often look at the books to make sure that everything was processed correctly. They have asked us to do that because sometimes they just aren’t sure.

We spent the whole morning cleaning the house because it was just horrible. We live with two other Elders and it looks like none of them have cleaned anything in who knows how long so I got on them a bit and now things are a lot better and a lot more clean. Tomorrow Elder Rapp and I are traveling to Resistencia for meetings all day. We leave at 1am and the meetings start at 8am and end at 4pm. It is going to be a long day and make our sicknesses even worse. We are hoping to stop in Corrientes the Capital to go to Wal-Mart and as of like a month ago there is also a McDonalds that we are hoping to get to know.

We have been working a lot with the list of members that are old enough to be baptized but aren’t because they are in inactive families and I think that we are going to have a ton of success with that. We have 2 people getting baptized on the 14th of this month and that will almost finish this family. We also have a few other baptismal dates set up for the end of the month or early next month. We are really excited and we get a lot of help from the members here. We also have lunch every day but p-day and Sundays!! It’s amazing and something I’ve never had.

My comp is pretty cool. Like I said he’s from California and it’s really his way or the highway which will make things pretty interesting. I’ve learned to bite my tongue so we will be just fine. Other than that not much is going on.

We went down to the river the other day to look across at Brazil which was pretty cool and we will probably take some pictures one day which ill be sure to send. Its super hot here but nothing I haven’t already had to put up with so ill just learn to live with it.

On Monday we have our zone conference in Corrientes so I will be traveling a lot this week and we are staying really busy.

Well not much else to report. I love you guys and hope that all is well. I pray for you often. Take care!

Tay