Another super crazy week!
Seriously,
this week was super full of stories so I will try to write
about a few. First we went to funeral of one of our investigator’s sister-in-law
because me and Elder Ensaldo had given her a blessing a few weeks ago because
she was really sick. The hospital didn’t know what it was and she had been sick
for a long time. When I gave her the blessing I asked that the hospital would
be able to diagnose the problem and they did - it was tuberculosis. But then
last Saturday she
passed
away so we were invited. The burial service at the cemetery was pretty crazy.
They had about 500 people and it was all in Changana, the language here, and
the pastor was Catholic. I love dialect songs though. But that’s not the
weirdest part - we got invited to go to the house afterwards to a prayer
ceremony and again there are like 500 people and we showed up late and
everybody is sitting on the ground with the pastor and a few other guys up
front with chairs by
this
table. So of course they walk us in front of everybody and give us chairs right
up front and everybody is just staring at us the whole time the pastor is
talking in Changana and singing and stuff.
So he gets to a part where he finally speaks Portuguese and invites
anybody who wants to to get up and speak and right away like half of the ladies
just stare straight at us. So the pastor starts saying it doesn’t matter what
language it could be Changana, Sena, Macua, all these dialects and this lady
just screams out “or English.” So by this point the whole crowd is looking
straight at us but then finally some ladies got up and started speaking dialect
again. Before they spoke they had to lead a crowd in a song and they stand up
and speak. So anyways at the end we try to sneak out because they are giving
everybody this fish stuff and we get caught and they get pretty offended
if you don’t eat so we ate it but were super sure to drink a lot of coke
afterwards.
Then at the funeral we get a call from Samuel
telling us his mom had just passed away. So the next day I felt like I should
call and see if he needed help with anything and he tells us just to come over
so we went over to his sister’s house where they were with a ton of women. So
we talked to Samuel and he never told us what he needed help with so I thought
maybe he just wanted to talk so we talked and stuff while all these women were
in a room all talking and then we get invited in and Samuel puts chairs right
in the front of about 20 women who also are speaking Changana. So I’m thinking ok
this is a family meeting where they are just going to plan the funeral and
stuff. I have no idea why we are here and everybody is just staring at us again
so Samuel introduces us and it just gets quiet. Then Samuel is like “well can
we start with a prayer Elders?” Then it finally clicked he wanted us teach, so
we have sticky note pictures of the Plan of Salvation and we taught the whole
thing to all these Machamba mommas . So some didn’t understand Portuguese so the
ones who did translated into Changana and the spirit was super strong. The
oldest one who only spoke Changana kept telling us she knew what we taught was
true and thanking us. It was a way cool experience.
This weekend we also watched conference
finally. We had like no investigators but it went well. Andre and Maria also
had a family member die last weekend so he was only able to come Sunday
afternoon when they showed the second session for the second time and he was
seriously the only person who came so we watched it with him and our branch
president on a tv.
Things are going good! We are just having a
hard time sitting with people and finding people who will keep commitments, but
it has definitely been a journal-worthy week!
Love ya
guys
Elder Bigelow
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