We bought Pan and the panadero let me try on his basket thing that held it all  :) Super padre!

Our district . Super little haha Also Christmas day :)

Can you see her safety mask underneath ahahaa pobresita!! Compañera mia.. Hna Vergara

Christmas Eve with the family who invited us for dinner. The girl in white and her dad on the end dedicated us a song and sang it to us. Some church song. Super sweet family!

Feliz Navidad y prospero año!

Although this week was a little slower in the work of the Lord due to
Christmas, and vacations and all, well we were still able to have
success. Christmas Eve was the slowest of all since we had our weekly
planning, and well we all chatted for a bit, and a family invited
us over in the night to have dinner.... at 8pm, which turned out to be
8:30.. and we ended up running back to or apartment and were late :(
First time in the mission, we arrived at 9:32!!! We repented :) We
almost threw up since the family lived further away from our home,
so we ran home with full tummies and yah. Then we made popcorn haha
(The one thing I cannot live without!)
 
It was weird seeing people outside their houses on Christmas day for 2
reasons.. Our family doesn’t even leave the house on Christmas day, ha,
and well the second, it’s always too cold that why would anyone
want to leave to begin with! Tradition here is that on Christmas Eve
everyone has their dinner at like 12am!!!! Then at like 2 or 3 in the
morning they have dessert!! And don’t go to bed until 5 or 6am!! (Close
to when we woke up! We ran outside in the morning, so we actually
found that people were still up listening to their loud music (Spanish
music, not even Christmas music! But it was all good.
 
We had our District class this day, and since my comp bought me
cookies for Christmas, she also gave me one of her dresses that I
always borrow from her (sick of my clothes already!) I brought them to
share with everyone... but since we aren’t allowed to bring food to
these classes, and such we played a game (I was teaching part of the
district class this day) so that there was a prize, and an excuse to
eat! haha
 
Kevin left for vacations this week so we weren’t able to see him this
week which worries us! He is really awesome too; just needs more time
than others.
 
We have an investigator who is honestly progressing a lot, her name is
Mary (23)... She is living with someone named Juan, who is also
listening to us as well, but not as attentively. They have 2 kids She
told us yesterday that she knew the Book of Mormon was true! Jaw
dropped! We left them with the video of the Restoration to watch, and
invited them to have a kneeling prayed together after to ask if Joseph
Smith was a prophet! She told us after she watched the video, she
knew. Only that there is a problem. She works at a resort, or hotel,
and works every Sunday early in the morning until 4pm everyday. :(
Super wonderful girl.
 
 
Hna Vergara got super sick this week with the fever, and cough…A
cough that never ends! Like every 10 seconds she is coughing out a
lung! She was coughing all night the other night, and has a sore
throat. I slept through most of it. Finally I took a little more
initiative over her health and told her she cant be sucking on her
suckers, and eating candy lol. She is getting better, but still a
little slow moving. We can barely contact people because she is
moving so slow, and I’ve had to teach most of the lessons on my own
since she has to leave the room because her cough is unmanageable. Poor
girl, she walked around with a safety mask on Friday! Now she walks
with a scarf, I’m going to send a pictures she looks so cute! haha
 
Well my wonderful family. I love you! I hope you were able to enjoy
Chinese food on Christmas Eve :) Remember who you are and the name you
represent, no need for a nametag to preach the gospel and to be a
Disciple of Christ. Like President Hinckley said, every member a
missionary! Let us not forget this counsel of a Prophet, called by
God, and bring forth this work and peace to everyone we know! Do we
really love our neighbours. I know that they will not be offended if
you invite them to church or to listen to the missionaries if it is
done out of love. Humility before the Lord. What we do and say
says a lot about our character. :)
 
Happy New Year!
Hna Tagg <3

Christmas Video

https://docs.google.com/…/d/0B2rTr3ogdIb1OEZfWllkamNJT…/edit

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Hna Vergara and I at the temple.. we did 2 sessions.. in SPANISH! :)

We ate at her house for lunch!!! Like her mom invited us! And her parents didn’t want her to be baptized in the first place, but now her mom is listening to us, and we can teach at her house 

instead of at the church now!  Adriana… our recent convert..LIKE MIRACLE!!

Eduarda.. she is 90 years old.. less active, but super sweet and funny.. she told us to be careful with the boys in the street. She says a bunch of funny things to us. We want to visit her everyday!!

HNA afu And I at the conferenece with Elder Nelson check out the foot tan line.. yah its faded

Jordyn and I.. she was in my EFY group a few years back, just finished her mission and ended up in my ward last week :)

Birthday Girl.. 21 years old

We bought pan last week to eat for Pday.. too lazy to try and make food, or more like we didn’t have any time.

Some girls we were teaching that came to church.. their parents as well.

10 days till Christmas!

How does the time fly by so fast! Like I feel like when people send me
 pictures, everyone looks much older, or so different! Is it the same
 with me??

 Anyways... this week went by so fast, but it was sad because we
 dropped a ton of investigators. The saddest part was when someone
 broke up with us. Our hope for a baptism this month dropped, Kevin :(
 I don’t’ even want to explain it. Broken broken broken! Like worse than
 a break up, because it is someone’s Salvation, and they dont even
 realize it!

 On brighter terms, I’m never going to wash my right hand ever again.
 Haha. All of the missionaries in my mission, along with the
 Guadalajara east mission came and listened to Elder Nelson. We drove
 6 hours at 2am, so we could be there for 2 hours! So worth it!

 One thing that caught me attention was that we don’t just get baptized
 to be baptized. We get baptized so that we can be members and enter
 into the temple and make greater covenants! He said that we all need
 to prepare our investigators to enter into the temple! I love the
 temple, which reminds me, I’m going to the temple this Saturday!!
 (Another long drive to Guadalajara) Super stoked!!!

 Another thing he said is that as missionaries we should take advantage
 of our study time more wisely, we will never have another chance to
 have such a set schedule to convert ourselves.. If we haven’t changed
 by the time we get back, then our missions weren’t successful. BAM!

 I hate to cut short because I want to just say everything, but time is short!
 Enjoy the pictures that I sent. And happy birthday to Hna Vergara..21
 years old! And yes. we had a cake fight, and no I didn’t eat the cake
 lol.. Smelt so gross the cheese cake, like vomit! Now our house
 smells like vomit!

 Hasta Luego!
 Hna Tagg

    

FELIZ DICIEMBRE!! CASI ES LA NAVIDAD!!


  So I got all emotional this week and cried 3 different days. But it is
  all good. I figured it was because I didn’t get the chance last week to
  catch up on the sleep I needed, since that is what mama Tagg would
  say.. then I thought of other things I could do... PENETON! Mama Tagg
  Always said that it helps to fix everything. Hehe

  Well with Christmas coming around I hope everyone has checked out the
  video on YouTube or lds.org ¨He is the Gift¨. View it, like it, and
  share it, and like it some more :)

  I received a little stuffed monkey from my mission mom Hna Castillo
  this week with a note. She told me that our convert in Sayula,
  Ignacio, went to the temple already, an is super stoked to go on a
  mission.. next fall :))))) YAY!!

  The convert of Hna Vergara and I, Mariel, well her and her parents are
  moving to Leon, Mexico next week. We are super sad. And her parents
  are both working on Sundays, so they have been attending another ward
  in the morning :( They seem to be reflecting us a little bit these
  days.. More our ward than anything, because they hadn’t felt much
  support. Like visiting teachers, and home teachers have never come to
  their house in the 7 years that they have lived here in Vallarta..
  Entonces, testifico de maestros orientadores y maestras visitantes...
  Haganlo, es muy importante y afecta las personas y su actividad en la
  Iglesia! The church is not just a building, but an organization, there
  is a role for each of us as members.

  This week in our zone conference we talked about setting goals and
  making plans to reach them. Naturally I loved it because I love
 organization! (Even if I’m not the best at it) It went really well. I
  loved it! I felt like I just knew exactly what they were saying and
  why and how to do it! It was like SI YO SE! And I just wanted to
  blurge and talk because I was so excited about the topic, but yah, not
  my time to talk. Ha

  Anyways, we are teaching this one investigator.. 18 years old named
  Kevin. He is a really happy guy, and you wouldn’t believe how we met
  with him...

  We went to a house where some contact told us they lived. (they lied)
  So we talked with the family there, learned the names of their
  children so we could come back and contact them.. which we did twice,
  finding both their 2 kids.. So the 3rd time we came to their house there
  was a guy named Marbel or something, and then!!! Kevin passes by, and
  he says hi to Marbel, and so we ask.... ¨como se llama el?¨ and he
  says its Kevin.. Then we asked where he lived, like 5 houses down.
  So we contacted him. This happened like 3 weeks ago. But ya, he has
  attended church the last 2 weeks, and we are preparing to baptize him
  the last week of the month! Just we are praying so hard for him that
  he will keep coming to church and keep completing the
  commitments! Really receptive guy. :)

  What more to say other than this Saturday Hna Vergara and I will be
  heading up to Guadalajara this week to hear from ELDER NELSON!!!!!!!!
  AHHH Super stoked! But shhhh.. we aren’t to tell anyone. Feliz Navidad
  eh?? It really is the most wonderful time of the year :)

  Well The Book of Mormon is true! I just finished reading it again this
  week. Share it with everyone you know! Let everyone know what you
  believe, and who you represent, and be that representative at all
  times! Jesus Christ lives!

  Hasta el siguente semana,
  Hna Tagg
  xoxoxoxo <3<3<3<3
  CARIDAD!

1 month till Christmas!

This week went well. We had our zone conference with the
President. Every time we have our conference we have an exam about the
doctrine of some principle. This time we had to have all the lesson of
The Restoration, The Plan of Salvation and The Gospel of Jesus Christ
memorized (where it says 30-45 mins in PMG of each lesson, found in
the back of each lesson) along with the scriptures that went with each
point. If someone got less than 90% they cant be a zone leader, or
train new missionaries... and if a missionary got less that 90% they
have to retake the exam next month at our interviews! But I passed its
all good, but there were a good amount of people that didn’t.

This week I learned a good amount of doctrines. One of the things I
learned from my comp, who learned from our president is about
forgiveness. Like how do we really know if we have forgiven someone??
Well the other person involved has to know that you forgive them. Also,
just because we forgive someone doesn’t mean we have to be around these
people. For example with Nephi with his brothers, even though he loved
his brothers and forgave them for all they did to him, he separated
himself from them. Something so simple, but gave me a greater
understanding of forgiveness.

With Christmas coming up, I will have you know that we will be putting
up a mini white Christmas tree in our apartment today :) And just 1
more month to go before I can call home!! AHHHH! I’m just a little bit
scared to speak in English.. I guess I keep speaking in Spanish to all
the Americans that come here for vacations. I may not be perfect at
speaking Spanish, but it is so much easier at this time to just speak
it because it is how I function and think. So we will see how it goes.
:)

Sad news: We didn’t have any investigators at church yesterday.. that hurt :(

Pero, todavía les amo mucho!
Hna Tagg

Baptism of Adrianna

Sweating like there is no tomorrow. Luckily the heat has gone down a little bit this past week

Like all my socks right now

Pan de muerto-halloween

Real flowers as earrings...through my ear hole and everything!

Random butterfly

Baptism of Mariel, with some of her family

6 months in the mish with tacos, I know, bien dispenada

This picture doesnt even do justice for how steep this road is!

I’m not super great at thinking of subtitles.. hope the date is fine
for everyone... ESPECIALLY MI HERMNAITO!! (since its his GOLDEN
birthday!!-17!!!)
 
Okay well the work is great! I love reading everyone’s letters each
week! Thank you to everyone to writes me each week!
 
This week he planchado un miembro about the Sabbath day for working
every week when he doesn’t need to! He usually talks for hours when we
visit him, but he was pretty quiet. I just hate to see his wife take
her two little kids to church each week solo! Feel so bad, especially
since they have only been baptized for 7 months, and if they want to
be sealed in the temple, he might break that for them. He is less
active in our books, but in the ward, still is active for right now.
 
My comp and I are enjoying our language study. We made up lyrics,
(super not professional) to the song in Enchanted that goes like ´´how
does she know that you love her.. how do you show that you love
her.´´ Something along those lines. It was a good time. We also
rapped. (okay not really but made a beat) to one of the hymns. Its
brutal how badly we sound, but to us, super funny!
 
I found out today that all my pictures have been lost from my USB
stick from my whole mission and MTC experience :( I think the guy who
work in this Internet cafe didn’t eject my USB when I went to print a
document, so everything got wiped clean! I never did like USB sticks.
Super sad, and depressing.
 
Well next baptism hopefully will be in like 3 weeks. A mom, and her
son. Lilian and Dilan. Her other 2 sons are members somehow. The
situation is crazy, at first we thought she was less active, but
yah.... anyways, hopefully she can do her part to prepare herself for
this covenant. She is attending church but not reading the BOM, so we
can’t share the lessons with her! BOM 1st.. its a rule. And like we
know, you can’t gain a testimony of the BOM without reading it.
 
The family we met with last week didn’t come to church this week :( But
Hna Vergara and I had a little activity today with some of the youth,
we played basketball, and they came to the church and played.. well
the parents and their youngest daughter. The older 2 are pretty
rebellious and weren’t home when we passed by their house.
 
Little by little. Patience. I just don’t understand why people say
they will do things.. so simple, and don’t do it.. like coming to
church, after 5x of saying they´ll come, or multiple times.. I will
read the BOM.. and no. Frustrating! But hey, as long ad I do my part,
the Lord has his time for everyone :)))
 
SONRIA!
 
Hna Tagg

This week was incredible!
 
Okay, so there was one day this week where we only had 2 lessons.
Everything just fell right through, and one of the lessons well, wasn’t
really a lesson, it was a break up. She broke up with us :( Also tried
hard to give us back the BOM that we gave her days before. Pretty much
she read Moroni 8 which talks about baptizing babies and that being an
abomination before God. She is preparing her baby for her baptism
right now. Yah... Second lesson, was simply a random contact in the
street! It didn’t help that this day was Thursday, weekly planning,
and weekly meeting with our ward mission leader that we don’t actually
have.
 
But Friday, my oh my! I got to work with our capacitadora, and that
was like the best time of my life! Her name is Hna Ford. She is from
Utah. She is such a great missionary! And such a great example of a
consecrated missionary! I learned like a billion things from her, how
to better improve my studies, and our planning each night, how we can
do things more effectively! And on top of that, how to really do the
work of the Lord more effectively! It was wonderful! Super positive
missionary, super diligent and happy! :)) We even received 50 names! We
are suppose to receive at least the same amount of names as lessons,
so if we have 6 lessons, well 6 names.. so 50!!! Honestly I think that
was a record, and we have planned to receive 45 names for the week!
Everything just went splendid!
We also taught our recent convert Adriana, and her mom even accepted
to listen to us this day! MIRACLE! Anyways, we had 6 new investigators
this day and 6 fetchas metas for baptism... now they just all need to
follow through by coming to church and such!
 
We had 9 less actives at church today!! MIRACLE! Usually its like
between 2 and 4. People the Lord is hastening his work and bringing his
sheep unto him! Goodness it was so great! One young mom Karim who
hasn’t come to church in 10 years.. like since she was in young women’s!
Good day!:) Happy soul!
 
Yesterday our member cancelled on us, so we couldn’t go to our appts for
the day and teach, so we cancelled who we were going to visit and
looked at our list of references and remembered one that we had about
a couple weeks ago. 2 young girls 14 and 16 told us the names of their
moms about 2 weeks ago and where they lived.. So we looked for them
yesterday and it was great!
 
One of them is a family of 5! And they are golden!!! (The Gomez family)
The mom started crying after we opened with a hymn and prayer. They
are having financial problems, and problems with their two older
daughters who have started to drink, 13 and 16! So young, anyways, the
spirit was so strong in the lesson, and the were super accepting and
want to listen to us as a family, and without having yet committed them
to reading the BOM the mom Janet said that they were going to read as
a family 15 minutes each day! AHH! We were short on time, already
9:25pm so we forgot to set a baptismal date, being in a rush, but
they will accept :)
 
The other is great too, divorced, but the mom told us that she has
been looking to baptize her 14 year old daughter for a couple weeks!
Her daughter also is rebellious. Always that age right? Anyways, they
both accepted a baptismal date, and her daughter wasn’t quite so hard
by the end of the lesson :)
 
OBEDIENCE: Don’t be disobedient just to satisfy the demands of men,
always haz lo justo! CTR :)
 
tata for now,
Hna Tagg <3