November 25, 2013 - Matola

Well this week has been pretty nice,

  Tuesday I got to go on divisions with Elder Williams who is the Matola zone leader. We were in the MTC together and so it was way fun. We had 3 full families at church and as a district we got ten families and our frequency at church was 190!! I think that is a new record for Matola! Super pumped! Our water situation still isn’t the best and washing clothes by hand is quite the experience but this week I will try to pay somebody else to try to fix it. President shut down our idea of getting a new house because our location now is like perfect.

     Ok, so let me tell you guys a super cool story about a family we are teaching right now, Carla and Abreu! So we will start off this story way back in the 90's when Carla lived in Zimbabwe and went to our church with some people in her family but was never baptized. So she is from Mozambique and comes back and hooks up with Abreu but was never able to find the church here. Then she moves in with her family to Taxlom, right next to Samuel and Maria. So she talks to Maria and finds out our church is here but doesn’t think her husband will accept. And then she left to visit family in South Africa for like 3 weeks. So get this - while she is gone, without saying anything about the church to her husband, Elder Mendes (who left last transfer) invites him to church when they cross on the road and he came. So we talk to him at church and sit with him that week - 1st lesson - accepts baptism!! And we left him a Book of Mormon. The second time we go back he is halfway through 1st Nephi and has talked to his boss about not working Sundays and we finish the restoration. Third lesson Carla is finally back from South Africa and blown away that her husband has already found the church and he is in 2nd Nephi with an answer that Joseph Smith was a prophet and they both just want to get married and baptized!! With Samuel and Maria with neighbors and friends!! Pretty legit! The Lord really does prepare people to hear our message! 

   Andre and Maria are finally getting married and baptized with their son, Jr., this weekend and they are super excited. Their interviews went super nice! They have really strong testimonies and are going to help us teach some lessons this week. If you guys want you can write them emails this week and I can translate or google translate or something. They are seriously an amazing family. I will send pics next week.

   Thursday we are all going out to eat pizza for Thanksgiving - at least everyone in our house.

    Hey, I got your package!! I almost cried when I got Gramma’s eggnog mix - give her a big hug for me! The letters were super nice!! And trust me, I will put all that candy and sauce mixes to good use! Sorry I couldn’t wait until Christmas but I don’t know what I would do without the socks that were in there. Thanks everyone!

    Well, tell everyone ‘hi’ for me!

    Love ya guys!

Elder Bigelow

November 18, 2013 - Matola

Hey guys,

  Hey can you please forward me Holden’s emails? I still have not read any of them.  And also I heard the Houstons are moving. Can you get me their email? And also I am not sure if we ever gave them back the Rosetta Stone language computer program I used before the mission. If it is still at our house can you give it back to them? I think Ransom might have borrowed it after me. Thanks.

   Well, I got Dad’s email and wrote him back. Hope everything goes well on his surgery and that is awesome he is getting Saul’s old truck!

  This week went well. We finally found some new families. The neighbors of Samuel and Maria are awesome. She has been in South Africa and is coming back today, but he has come to church twice and is reading in the Book of Mormon. Apparently she lived in Zimbabwe and got to know the church and has been looking for it here so we are really excited about them. Andre and Maria are finally getting married and baptized on the 30^th, next week.

   Tell Colton Edwards ‘hi’ for me. That is crazy he is already home. It’s good to hear that all the missionaries in the Philippines are doing fine. Who did Reagan marry?

   Tell David ‘hi’ for me. Does he have his own email? I want to write him his own letter so, if not, I will just send it to yours next week.

  We might get a new house! One that is pretty close to ours right now actually. But I have kinda gotten used to bucket showers and am learning how to hand wash clothes. It takes forever haha but all the people here do it like everyday. It's pretty much a part of their culture. It is pretty funny how they dry them. They just beat them against a giant rock. Maybe one day I will try to film it.

      Did you get that letter from President Kretly I sent about the dresses? What is the situation with that? We need a lot of big dresses because we have quite a few small ones but some of the women, like Maria, are kinda big here and she was sad none of the dresses we had fit her. But they are going to rent one.

 Well I might try to send some pics today so have a great week!

Elder Bigelow

This is a building in Maputo that was designed by the same guy who did the Eiffel Tower.

November 11, 2013 - Matola

Hey guys,

   This week has probably been the longest week of my life. 1st off all the new missionaries in our district got here and it is a little weird adjusting. We were all super tight in our last house and could joke around and stuff but now it’s a little different - but things are going good.

  Also, what started out as trying to fix a leaky shower head turned into us having no water for 3 days and taking showers with our neighbors hose sticking through our bathroom window! Our pump has tons of problems, but hopefully this week we can get it all fixed. Some guy came and fixed it enough to where we have water, but the pressure was sky high, so the 1st time I turned on the shower head it exploded -haha! Add it to my list of things to fix in our house this transfer.

   Elections are going on and so this week we are supposed to buy three weeks of food and water! Nothing is really happening though. Don’t worry. I have been learning karate every morning in case things get ugly and I should be a black belt soon!

    We found 2 awesome families. One is Samuel and Maria’s neighbors who are supercool. She gets back from South Africa this week. Samuel got the priesthood last week and is seriously a super-member who is helping us a ton. He has given us a bunch of references and is always inviting people to have family home evening with them at their house! President already has a calling picked out for him and we don’t even teach them - they just teach us!

    Also we found a couple, Lorenso and Acusena, who are cool. He came to church yesterday. I wrote about them last week. Our first lesson was crazy. I asked what she was looking for in a church and she goes ‘the answer to three questions: where did we come from? why are we here? and where are we going after we die?’ I couldn’t believe it. I had to make sure she didn’t already have a plan of salvation pamphlet! But we taught it and the restoration this week to them.

   Hey that is super crazy about the Philippines! Have you heard anything about Chantz? And Ransom wrote me about the Utah thing. That would be awesome. I really think I want to go to UVU.

   Don’t worry about my health, Mom. It’s always supernice.

 Well, love ya guys!

  Elder Bigelow

p.s.  I asked President Kretly about the wedding dresses, and this was his answer:

About the wedding dresses they can send without put any costs, just need to send and put as a used dresses. Because if they put a amount the value, we pay a lot of taxes here!
Thank you for being a great missionary!
Paulo Kretly
President
Mozambique (Angola) Maputo Mission

[President Kretly is Brazilian and his native language is Portuguese. You can really tell J]

November 4, 2013 - Matola (still)

    I am sure our mission could use those dresses for sure. [A sister in our ward here in Eagar wanted to know if she could donate some wedding dresses and temple dresses to the ‘wedding planners’ in Ryan’s mission] I will write President Kretley about it in my email this week. 

  Well transfers were pretty crazy. Me and Elder Ebmeyer are staying together for a third transfer!! 3 out of the 6 people in our house are leaving and our house is getting a new elder. I am district leader again. It should be a fun transfer but not at all what I was expecting. 

    Elder Lake, my companion in the MTC is going to be branch president in Inhamizua and Inhamizua has 4 missionaries now. They need a lot of help with leadership. Amisse, the guy me and Elder Awbry helped get married is the elders quorum president and is doing super awesome, I hear. But I found out today that Pasqua’s wife passed away. Super super sad. They are only like 35, but what a blessing they were able to get married and live the law of chastity before she passed away. I am going to call him today.

    We finally got a new family to come to church, Ragina and Sadiki, who are pretty cool and we had an awesome lesson last night. We sat with a couple who he had sat with the missionaries like 3 years ago and when we called him decided to let us come by but didn’t tell his wife. They both are without a fixed church, so I felt like I should ask them ‘what are you looking for in church?’ And she thought for a minute and she asks in exactly these words: 'Where did I come from? Why am I here? and Where am I going?'  We were just like blown away! So we ask if she has ever found an answer to any of these questions and she says no. So we pull out the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and have her read the intro and she almost started crying and says ‘These are the exact questions I have!’ So we taught about the Plan of Salvation and we are going back this week. It was super nice to have a lesson like that because sometimes I feel like we have been sitting with tons of new people but not having very many great lessons. But it really helped my faith that God is preparing people to hear our message. Andre and Maria will be baptized this transfer but we want to baptize at least one other family as well. 

    And please don’t remind me about how much time I have left! I hate thinking about it! It makes me super sad sometimes. Missionary work is super hard or frustrating but I don’t know how I am going to leave this place! I don’t even have the slightest idea of what I want to do or where I want to go when I get home. Well I love ya all  - thanks for the photos.

     Elder Bigelow