Monday, April 29, 2013

April 29, 2013 - Inhamizua


Hey guys,
      First off tell Anne and Wes congrats for me! That is supercool. That is way crazy the stake presidency is changing. You guys will have to tell me who the new presidency is.
      This week has been pretty full of things to do. I did division with Manga 3, the other dupla in our house. It went well. This week we have a division with the zone leaders who are awesome, and I am walking in my area. We have been finding a lot of new families but it has been hard to get them to come to church. I feel like everyone just comes to church once and then stops, but things are definitely getting a lot better.
    I wish Bobo could have stayed here. He will be an awesome leader in the church. Have you guys ever emailed him? If you guys don't want to, or think it would be weird, you don't have to, but I talked to him this week and he is doing good.
   This week we watched general conference. Crazy. So first off the energy goes out and so we can't watch it on our little TV.  Our Branch President decides to invite people to bear testimony on what we have already watched while we wait. And after about 30 minutes, the energy comes back on but then our neighbors just start blasting rap! So Elder Awbry and I go talk to them and they finally agree to turn it off. And the whole time there are tons of kids just running around everywhere outside so we go back and this litte kid is in the doorway just peeing all over our front step! At first I was super frustrated, but then I just couldn't stop laughing - only in our branch!
      So this week we also went to Dondo with President Bueno to teach a big group in the chapel there. It was really cool. We taught about the Book of Mormon. They are still trying to decide what will happen with the group in Dondo. I really hope it stays open. We have been having a lot of problems with our house, but our toilet doesn't move around anymore, which is super good news, and we have a showerhead.
   I used a little bit of personal money - sorry - not very much though.
 We made wedding invites for the wedding Saturday! Superfunny, but everyone loved them. It is so funny how nice wedding invites are back at home and the people loved the ones we did on microsoft word and thought they were the coolest thing ever.
    Well tell everyone hi for me
                                        Love you guys!
        Elder Bigelow

Monday, April 22, 2013

April 22, 2013 - Inhamizua


Hey,
    This week has been super busy. We had an awesome zone conference with President and I learned a lot. Our mission is exploding!! It has so much potential. He talked a lot about how we can find and teach new families and one part of the training he talked about working in every phase of missionary work. We should be doing 5 contacts a day and sitting with at least one new family a day. We also got to watch the talk by Elder Anderson that talks about our mission. We are so blessed.
      Well our area is struggling with people to teach that will progress so we tried exactly what we learned in conference and have already found some awesome potential families. We also opened the process of marriage with the member couple and they will get married on May 4th in Inhamizua! We just have to make the cake and somehow make some invites.
     Our branch has been struggling ever since I got here - we just need leaders so if you guys want to move to Inhamizua I can hook you up with some callings and it would just help everyone, haha. I really am learning a lot though being in the presidency.
    This week we are going with Joao Bueno to visit Dondo on Thursday and do some work there. I'm pretty excited. And we got a new fridge this week!! But the bad news is our septic tank is full so I have to get that taken care of today.
       We get to watch all of conference this weekend!! So excited. Life is good. Whenever I think of conference now I am always going to think of the lady me and Elder Lopes invited to watch it with us in Dondo and then she and her husband ended up getting baptized and married after we left.
     I need phone numbers please!!
 Well love ya guys!

Monday, April 15, 2013

April 15, 2013 - One year!


Well this week I have a little more time to write. This week was probably one of the weirdest weeks of my life! A lot of stuff happened - both good and bad. Some stuff I will have to tell you guys all about when I get home, but I will just focus on the good stuff that happened. Elder Awbrey from Louisiana is my new companion and it's awesome. He was in Dondo and so we were already in the same district, but president took missionaries out of Dondo so he came to be my companion.  The other dupla that is in our house are Elder Martins from Cape Verde and Elder De Oliveira from Brasil (who I lived with for a transfer up in Nampula). They are both way cool and I am super excited for our district and our zone.
    This week we have a zone conference with president which should be way awesome. They already had it in Maputo and all the missionaries there loved it.
    Hey well, Bobo got transferred and moved up to Nampula this week. I don't know if I already told you this, but anyways he speaks English at his job and is always looking for ways to better his language. We gave him a Liahona which is like the Ensign in English and he loved it. But I was thinking it would be way cool if you guys could send him an e mail in English and maybe just talk to him a little bit. I'm sure he would be way happy and try to write you guys back. inaciobobo@gmail.com  It is so weird how much he has changed since we first contacted him when he was drunk haha. He loves the scriptures and really wants to help other people. His family might move up there too and they could get taught by the missionaries.
      I watched part of conference this week and got to see elder Anderson's talk that talked about Mozambique - way cool. I'm pretty sure those pictures were taken in Maputo and one in Beira these marriages are awesome and are happening a lot more frequently now and we have had a couple in Manga as well. In fact, Friday there was a collective wedding and we baked a cake and went and helped. A couple that are in our branch are going to get married this month. They are super excited. We should start the process with them this week and then we just have to wait for like a week to make sure nobody rejects it. Also Carvalho and Albertina, some of our investigators, are working on their papers. Papers are a headache but they are about halfway done. They have been coming to our branch for three years! He told me they were already members when I first got here so we weren't even teaching them until I found out. They were taught a lot in the past and then dropped because his documents were in Tete and they were not trying to get them, but after they got dropped he went and got them on his own so they can get married. They have a daughter who was baptized in our church and then died, so they started investigating and found out about temples and how they can live with her again and super want to be sealed as a family. But they are super funny. I'm not sure how old they are but they speak a lot of dialect. I really like them a lot. You might have to send me some cake recipes because Elder Awbrey and I are making the wedding cake for Amisse and Pasqua, the couple that are already members. Please? Thanks!
    Joao Bueno, President Kretley’s first counselor who lives in Manga, is awesome. He is from Brasil but his wife and stepsons are all from Utah. He lives here working for Care For LIfe . They help the people build latrines, learn how to purify water and do a ton of stuff, I actually think it would be super cool to have a job like that but - long story. We got to eat over at there house on Friday and it was super good. His wife made us cookies and we watched conference and talked to their sons who only speak English. It was awesome. I have actually been over a couple of times and they are the nicest people ever.
     Me and Elder Awbrey hardly have any investigators so we have a goal of 42 contacts. we already have 9 today. It is way cool having a companion that really wants to work hard and we can help each other. Our house needs a lot of work so this transfer I have a lot of plans to fix it up.
    Hey did you ever talk to Blake Sanders about his e mail? Can you please try to get it for me? And can you send me your new phone numbers again - I can't find them and never told anyone they changed. And if you can get a bunch of girls to write me I wouldn't complain either just jokin’!
       The mission goes by way fast! It's crazy - a year has gone by! I don't really want to think about it.
      Other good news - the little baraca (lemonade stand on steroids) right next to our chapel didn't blast music during church! I didn't even have to ask once for them to turn the music down. I was banking on leaving last week, so when my president asked me to talk I said ‘yes, but if I wasn't there because of tranfers somebody else in the presidency would have to do it.’ I talked about missionary work.
     I love my mission and things are going good! Our stats should be a lot better this transfer and I am learning a lot. Love you guys!
                                                        Elder Bigelow

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

April 9, 2013 - Inhamizua


Hey family,
    Thanks for all your letters this week. I really have like zero time to write today we have to go to the dentist and it is transfers. Things are going nice. I'm getting a new comp this week and I am going to be district leader. Dondo got missionaries taken out which is pretty sad. They might juntar [join/combine]with Inhamizua. This transfer we should be getting two couples married: one investigator couple and one that are already members. I am super excited to watch conference here in like 3 weeks. We watched a little bit at Bobo's house when we went to teach him because he was watching it online and was super excited. 

                                                              Love ya all, 
                                                                             Elder Bigelow

Monday, April 1, 2013

April 1, 2013 - Inhamizua



Dear family,
      That is way cool you guys got to go to Holden's farewell and up to Utah. Transfers are in a week and I am super excited! I have no idea what will happen but I think I will stay because I am 2nd counselor. I am just ready for any kind of change. I hope you guys got my photos. Bobo got baptized!! And he asked me to do it! It was super nice. First baptism in Inhamizua in 3 transfers. He could help here our branch a ton but he just got promoted at his job and is going to Nampula on the 12th to live there for 2 years. But luckily the church is there so we will just send his records and call the missionaries up there. We have one super nice couple that is progressing but we are having a hard time finding new investigators. But everything will work out.
    Blake Sanders is going to South Africa! Super cool!! You got to get me his email this week so I can talk to him, please. 
  Well President Kretley should be coming up to Beirra this week sometime. That should be good. There are going to be a lot changes I think. Elder Nascimento who has been in my house since I got to Inhamizua, Elder Keck my zl and Elder Bradford my companion in Nampula are all going home this week. There are like 10 missionaries leaving. Hopefully we get a lot of new missionaries. My companion is getting a root canal so we went to the dentist last week and have to go at least 2 more times this week. Things are going good. I am always looking for new ways to talk to people and to try to find people who want to hear our message. 
   Today we went to a crocodile farm out in the middle of nowhere - super cool - a jovem member took us. There was like 10 of us. Soo many crocodiles. Some are huge almost 5 meters long!
     Well I love you guys and thanks for all your letters.
                                                                                  Elder Bigelow