October 29, 2012 - Manga

Hey,

    Manga is in between Dondo and Beira so it was only like 30 40 minute drive. Well there are a lot of mangos and we have banana trees in our backyard! Way nice. There are 6 of us in our house and so that's way nice. We live in the same house as the zone leaders. This week was pretty fun. I left Tuesday and when I got here my comp, Elder Ostler was sick. He is a way cool guy - he is from Orem. But Wednesday we went out and did a bunch of contacts and it was a crazy day. We passed this house and Elder Ostler is all "Hey wait! I think we should knock that door for some reason!" So we did and the guy has the Melchizedek Priesthood but hasn't been to church in ten years! So we invited him back. And then we were contacting this lady sitting on her front porch and this car pulls up and like ten white ladies pile out (which is super weird by itself). They had come to talk to the lady we were contacting. They were her family from Portugal. But they all went inside except this one old lady who wanted to talk to us and was asking us a bunch of questions about the church. She was born here and her Mom still lives here but when the Portuguese got kicked out she went to California so she spoke English. Her mom is 102 years old! She was a super nice lady but she was telling us one of her sisters is Assembly de Deus, one is a nun, and one is Jehovah Witness. We taught her the restoration and got her contact info for Elders in California!! Now we just have to figure out how to get it there. When we left we didn't have any pamphlets so we gave her a 'Strength for Youth' even though she is like 80 and told her it still applies - it was pretty funny.

           Thursday we did divisions with the zone leaders and so I walked in the other area which was pretty cool. We watched conference again Saturday and Sunday because they didn't have power here last weekend. Oh and the Same day we found that one inactive member, we found another one while we were knocking houses and invited him to conference and he actually came!  I'm in the Manga 1st Branch and it is way nice! We have a real chapel and an awesome Branch President and members. It's super nice. We taught some white guys from Greece last night. They were super funny guys. They reminded me of the movie 'Grumpy Old Men' because they just argued a ton but they were brothers. It's super weird to talk to white people now but they only spoke Portuguese because they grew up here. There is one member in our area who was baptized just before I got here who is paralyzed on the whole right side of his body but he is a beast! He shares the gospel with everyone and has already introduced us to like 5 families. He invited this guy from South Africa who only spoke English To conference. I don't even know how he invited him because he doesn't even speak English. But he came and my comp had to translate for him but the guy fell asleep during conference - it was super funny.

              I'm pretty sad my area in Dondo is gone now. There are only 2 missionaries for all of Dondo and me and my comp both left. But I hope everything is going well for them up there. It's just not growing fast enough so President put more missionaries in other places that need it more. Yeah, I think Manga might actually be part of Beirra but I'm not sure. But I like it a lot here and I'm super excited for this transfer! 

            Hey have you sent a package yet? if you haven't I need blades for my Gillete razor and zebra pens. If you already have or don't want to it's cool. I don't really need them but those are things that are super hard to find if they even do exist here. I will try to put pics up on that site right now but no promises. 

          I can't believe it's already almost November! The mission is flying by and I am already in my 3rd area! Most people don't get to their 3rd area until like there 7th or 8th transfer! I am going to get to see all of Mozambique! I really want to get to serve in Maputo once before I leave though. It sounds so much different - like they have bowling and a shopping mall with an escalator that works - haha. Sounds nice but I'm liking the jungle. My area is super confusing. There are like 2 main roads and then just paths. But I'll learn it. The thing is it's a new area so even my comp hasn't explored it all. So we are just going to go explore contacting a lot this transfer.   

          Other stuff: Quelimane finally became an actual branch this week and not just a group anymore. I made hootenanies this week - way nice - but the 1st time I didn't put any milk so it was like cardboard. We have a family we are trying to help get married this month and baptize who are doing really well so that's exciting. And it's super super hot. Hey is Holden putting in his papers now? You got to tell me what's going on with other people and missions. But thanks for the emails

                                               

                                                                              Elder Bigelow

Here are a few pictures. They actually go with the entry from a few weeks ago when we went to the "zoo."

October 22, 2012 - My last week in Dondo

Dear Family, 
          
       One transfer area, Dondo, is going down to two missionaries! So three of us here are leaving and only Elder Leite will stay and get a new comp. I can't believe it! I don't have pictures with anyone and won't have much time to say goodbye, if any.  Dondo has been a great learning experience for me and there are so many things I regret and wish I would have done different, but all I can do now is learn and move on to my next area and try to be better. I am going to Manga, which means mango, it's like 15 minutes out of Berra the other direction, I think. They have a chapel! A real chapel and a lot more members. My house will have 6 people which I am super excited for. My companion will be Elder Ostler who is American. This transfer was hard but I learned so much from my comp. No matter what he was always happy and smiling! Even when I would be super frustrated and discouraged. I feel like I was pretty rude to him sometimes and I feel super bad but he was always a great example and I have told him that a lot. I am so grateful for him. This transfer I honestly learned that just as important as what we do is who we are. 
       This transfer was hard for me and I feel like at times I would just get discouraged and frustrated and wasn't  the most charitable missionary. That is one thing I have been working super hard on these last two weeks but still have a long ways to go. We can't control other people. The only real control we have is self control. The mission is more than a lifetime full of ups and downs packed into only two years.
        We got to listen to conference as a branch!! Super exciting! But I haven't seen all of them in English yet. I watched the priesthood session in English and am truly so grateful for a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson.  I loved the talks and know some of them were just for me!
       This transfer I learned so much from Elder Gergitz and all the advice he has given me. The mission is super tough but when you just step back from all the frustrating little details you remember what a blessing and a privilege it is. It's so crazy how fast time flies and life keeps just marching on. In two days I will be living in a new house and probably never see Dondo or these people again. A chapter in my life already written. Sometimes for me this kind of stuff is super hard to accept but then I just think of the chapter of my life I get to go write in Manga now.  I have learned my lesson now to take pictures as soon as you get into an area. I really don't have any with the people in Dondo and leaving this transfer is the last thing I expected. I thought I had more time here. I'm going to miss this place and I wish I wouldn't have let the small things get to me as much as they did here. This is a lesson I will try to live the rest of my life. Don't let small insignificant things bother you because in the big picture they don't matter - but how you react to them does. How you treat others matters no matter the situation it does matter.
        I have to leave the best house in the mission so my next house will probably seem super crappy.  But learning a new area and getting to know new people is always fun.  And I will soon forget about all the small things in Dondo. I'll only remember the good and have a whole new set of things to worry about. 
       Well I love you guys and pray for you every day!
                                                                         Elder Bigelow

October 15, 2012 - Dondo

Dear Everyone,
             This week. I don't even know what to say about this week! Only in Mozambique. 1st story: last week on the chapa back to Dondo we broke down in the middle of nowhere and had to wait like an hour for another chapa to come and all my frozen food I bought in Berra melted. Maybe it's not a good idea to buy frozen stuff - one time I bought frozen pot pies and they melted and leaked all over the chapa and the lady sitting next to me - I felt pretty bad.
             2nd story:  There is an old guy who lives right behind us who is like our guard. So we lock our gates and stuff every night. Well Wednesday morning we go out to work out and Elder Gergitz is like "Bro! Someone stole my shoes!" and I didn't really believe him and then my comp comes out and he is like "Hey someone stole my towel!" and then Elder Leite comes out to do laundry and he was all "Hey someone stole the soap!" I was just super happy nothing of mine got stolen, right? Until I needed my Sunday shoes. (My black ones had holes in them so I gave them away and had been wearing that super nice brown pair) but they got jacked!! So me and Elder Gergitz had to come into Berra to buy shoes! But this isn't even the crazy part - so you don't buy shoes in stores here right - people just sell them on the side of the road. I don't even know if you can buy shoes in boxes here, you just look at these markets until you find some you like that aren't too worn out. But there are places by our house that have a bunch of crappy ones so we went to check if the person who stole them sold them to this place - but they weren't there. But get this - today we went to this huge market in Berra to buy shoes for Elder Gergitz and he has this pair picked out and then he looks up and he is like "Hey what the heck?" and his pair that got stolen in Dondo Are hanging right in front of him! So we asked the guy where he got them and he said some kid had just sold them to him. haha. What are the chances of that! So Elder G bought his own shoes back for 200 metacais. He was pretty mad, but I was just laughing the whole time.
       3rd story: Today we went and saw alligators and monkeys and turtles and anacondas. Super cool. So some missionaries in Berra payed a chapa driver to bring them out to Dondo and pick us up and then take us to this ''animal reserve'' right? But it's like 30 minutes from Dondo in the middle of nowhere. Seriously we took the chapa on  

4-wheeler trails trying to find this place! So in the middle of nowhere all of a sudden this park pops out that is super run down and just the owner is there. So he let us walk around and see all the animals in cages. It was kind of like Uncle Shea's zoo up Big Lake Road. The guy let us hold the turtles and he was poking the alligators and making them snap and we fed the monkeys. It was nice and I took a lot of pics. It didn't even cost anything. We are probably the only people to go out there in like weeks haha!
       4th story: It rained super hard yesterday. Like poured and so we had only about 20 people at church. So we just all stayed in the same room the whole time and did lessons together. We had helped a member who lives way out in a place called Macharote prepare a talk for like 2 hours for church Sunday and she didn't even come.   We told one of our investigators we would come and walk with him to church because we have had a hard time getting people to come but it was pouring. But we decided to go anyway and hoped he would still come and he was sitting there waiting for us and was our only investigator to come to church yesterday! But he loved it. All the kids just went crazy and started just swimming in the puddles and taking showers in the water running off their tin roofs. It was pretty funny.
       We don't have too many investigators right now but we met with a guy for the second time yesterday that I'm pretty excited for. And Saturday and Sunday our branch is watching conference !!!!!!! So we have been inviting the whole world to come watch and see "the Prophet of God on the earth today" hoping that maybe a few will actually show up.
       We went to an old lighthouse in Berra today too, and we payed the guard ten metacais each and he let us climb to the top which was super fun.
       Transfers are next week and I am super ready for change. I love my comp. but feel like I plan and I don't feel like I know what I am doing exactly. It's super hard to manage all these contacts and decide who to keep visiting and who will just waste our time and when. And help all our members and things. So I hope I get somebody who has been here for a while. It's a lot of pressure. 

      Mangos are super good right now. 

      Oh, and a witch doctor from Zimbabwe moved into my and Elder Lopes' area! I saw a sign this week - so If I get sick or get some kind of curse or anything I know where to go! He is from Zimbabwe so what could go wrong?
         Tanner really proposed to Keeley? What? Dude we are like 19!
         This mission is crazy man. I don't even know my mission president. I have met with him once and seen him one other time. Our mission is like Maputo and then the rest of the mission. If you're not in Maputo, you feel very isolated. The church is crazy but Someday we will have a temple I bet. In the MTC, Elder Leake and I met one of the first missionaries in Brazil. He was super old but now look at Brazil and how many members they have now.
          David man you are going to go to Angola. That would be nuts!
                           Love you guys,
                                                         Elder Bigelow

October 8, 2012 - Dondo

Hey!
     Man, Dondo is a crazy place. Doing 35 contacts every week trying to find people. That one family we found that wants to get married came to church Sunday! Nice. A lot of people that I really thought would come didn't and we got some pretty funny texts of excuses like ''Hello Irmao (brother) Elders I can't come to church today sorry my pastor told me I can't have 2 churches.'' But things are getting better here - if else nothing my attitude haha. I think we will find more people though. We have started teaching a guy who's wife died and we taught him the plan of salvation. He seems pretty interested. The number of baptism here in Mozambique are going up because of all these contacts.
    Oh I forgot the best news of all! Last week we found a Muslim store in Berra that sells Mountain Dew and Pepsi and Nutella! Maybe I already told you about the Nutella, but dang - super cool!!
    I can't believe they changed the ages of missions to 18 and 19 - that is super cool. I think in Brazil and stuff they had already changed it because we have a Brazilian here right now who is only 18. The world definitely needs more missionaries. David, get ready man! 2 years! Your mission just got a lot closer. Temple in Tuscon - that's way cool. 

    Wednesday was a holiday here which is always crazy. Dia de Paz  or Day of Peace but everybody just got wasted. They had a parade in front of our house. There were a ton of drunk guys trying to fight right outside our house on the street, but they were super drunk. They just took off their shirts and tried to act all tough but they couldn't even see straight enough to hit each other - haha.  Contacting that day was pretty tough but we got our goal of 5!

    Last week we played indoor soccer with a bunch of the other missionaries - super fun - and today we are going to play basketball.
    Things are going well here. It's super hot and we have a pool so that is always a huge temptation. But I haven't given in yet. I just go read the scriptures.
    Can you send me some more recipes please? Simple things. I am tired of eating the same things every week. Maybe banana bread, super good pancakes, yeah - maybe banana pancakes! Hootinnannies, fajitas , and other delicious super fantastic food that is easy to make! 

    And I have a random question - is there a place called Pine Knoll close to where we live? I saw some guy with a Pine Knoll shirt and it sounds super familiar.  I am waiting for the day when I see somebody with an ASU or Round Valley shirt here - I am going to see one - I know it.
                     Thanks for all your letters.  Hope everything is going good. Tell grandma hi for me and tell me more about conference please. I don't know If we will get to watch it.

                                         Love you guys,
                                                                   Elder Bigelow

October 1, 2012 - Dondo

Hello America,
     We did a ton of contacts this week! Pretty crazy. Just talked to
everyone. But Dondo has a ton of churches! A lot of Catholics and
Jehovah Witnesses. Just trying to find people that are really willing

to act on our message. Thursday we had 3 lessons fall through so
we were just doing contact after contact and nobody really seemed too
interested. So I was thinking to myself 'what the heck nobody is
ready for our message' but, seriously, the very next house we call
"Licensa!" which is like "excuse me" because you never knock on doors you just
stand outside their yard and call , but this lady comes out and so we
ask if her husband is there and she invites us in (we never go in
people's houses - everyone just has lawn-chairs and we probably have 99%
of our lessons outside). So her husband comes and we share a brief
part of the restoration and ask for their number, gave them a pamphlet
and they promised to read it and so we told them we would call them
and set up a later day to meet again. She just looked straight at me
and said "We are ready for your message!" So we went back the next day
and the whole family was outside waiting for us and excited to learn
and we taught the restoration! Super cool - usually people will give you
their number but they are super surprised and annoyed if you
actually call them and don't really want to meet. This family didn't
come to church but we are definitely going back tomorrow.Super
excited about them!
     So crazy that General Conference is this weekend! I went to the
last one right before I left! Six months - I can't believe it! This week
we made some good goals and so we will see what happens. Hopefully we
can get some of our lessons we have to actually come to church. I am
learning so much here, though. Our contacts are getting way better. We
just go straight into the restoration so people don't think we are
just like any other church. We explain about prophets and priesthood.
So we see a little better who is actually interested, but it's still
hard to tell sometimes. People have such a different way of thinking
about God and gospel things here. Because everyone just starts
churches to get money! Honestly you will walk in the middle of nowhere
and there will be a hut with a paper hanging on the front it
that says something like: "Evangelical Christian Mission Fire Baptist Church of
the 13 Apostles." What? Haha! It's cool to ask the question to people "do
you ever wonder why there are so many different churches? Because we
can help you with that."
     My Portuguese is improving - just not super fast. Elder Lopes is
helping me a lot with my language and teaching and when I don't know a
word in Portuguese I have to try to explain it in Portuguese. We are
only going to teach seminary once a day from now on so we have more
proselyting time. This place really needs it and maybe we can find and
teach a guy who can teach seminary for us! I am learning a lot about
the Old Testamant by teaching it, though.
     I know that we really do have the priesthood on the earth and
that Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God. Thomas S. Monson is a
prophet today. Our message really is special and really can and will
change lives of those who accept it!
     What else happened this week? Primary yesterday was nuts. It
was just me and this lady. So she looks at me and says "Elder, help! I
didn't prepare a lesson." Flip? What do I do? The kids were just going
crazy, so I had them teach me Head Shoulders Knees and Toes in
Portuguese and then I taught everyone in English. It was pretty funny.
     We saw a monkey yesterday but it was just a pet and nobody was
there so we couldn't go play with it. But the other elders had an
investigator with a monkey and they would play with it but one time it
stole 5 meticais and tried to eat it!! Meticais are bigger than
quarters and they thought they killed it because it was choking but it
finally coughed it up.
     This place is so crazy. It's nuts to see the differences. I know
going back to the US is going to be as big or a bigger culture shock than coming
here! Electricity is crazy here - it goes in and out all the time! And we
don't have water when the power goes out so you always have to keep your
water bottles full. It has been super hot and humid here lately. It's
ridiculous! It's like Phoenix but humid.
     That's awesome Kariah and Dustin got sealed! We are helping Lyno, who is one of
our priesthood holders here, to prepare to go to the temple. Super
excited for him and his wife. They have to go to South Africa. We are
so blessed to have temples close in the United States. It is not an
easy thing for people here and not a lot of members have been.
     So I have been reading Alma in English and Mosiah in Portuguese
this week. Alma is such an amazing book. I have a book for classes
that helps explain more and has quotes and talks by apostles and
things in it and that helps a ton.

       My favorite scripture to share with people though is 2nd Nephi 26:24-28

     "He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him.  Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

     "Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying; Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.

     "Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay.

     "Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance.

     "Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden."

      I found Nutella this week! and ate a hamburger a couple of weeks
ago! Pretty exciting. There are Muslim stores here in Berra that have a
lot of American stuff.
     So who else is leaving from Round Valley to go on missions?
Colton's brother Kelton is getting his call probably this week if he
doesn't already have it. I want someone else to come here with me.
Well the computers are super slow but maybe I will try to send more pics.
I got some good ones! Like lions tigers elephants giraffes alligators -
haha -  but I really do have some of monkeys and a chameleon so almost
as good!
    Thanks for all the letters and prayers.
Ate proximo semana

Elder Bigelow