February 24, 2014 - Beira

   To answer your question: we did stop by Lucias house this week but we found out she actually passed away up in Niassa while visiting family. We gave her a blessing and she got well enough to stand up and walk around and travel and after she visited family she passed away. I guess the reason we gave her a blessing is so she could visit her family before she passed away.

   This week was a good week. We were supposed to baptize Zaria on Saturday but it didn’t happen because the water coming out of the tap here in Beira is super gross right now - you couldn't even see the bottom of the font and nobody from our branch was really able to come so we rescheduled for next week and made better plans. We were thinking of just baptizing her on the beach because it is super close.

    I went on divisions with Elder Sip in Beira 1 this week and we had some pretty good lessons. It is super important when teaching a family to make sure they both really understand the great apostasy or nothing goes right down the road. We retaught a family the restoration who the wife was having trouble coming to church and she hadn't really understood the apostasy. It was an awesome lesson and she understood it, promised to pray, but Sunday still went to her church. Do what? Everybody has agency.

    We asked the other elders in our district to reactivate and help our branch mission leader and it worked! We had correlation meeting and the branch missionaries are really excited. Our branch is already changing a lot. Everybody is starting to do visits and be more proactive and we are seeing that the missionaries in our zone who are working with the leaders are having families to teach and families at church. On the 8th of March, the last week of the transfer, there are going to be at least 3 couples married and baptized in our zone.

    Sergio lost his job but he is a boss. I wish you guys could meet our investigators right now - they are all super awesome. Like I would totally be super good friends with them before the mission. This week we should start more documents with families.

   Well hope everything works out back at home for you guys. Just remember the blessings you are getting. I will have to look at that ASU thing today but I change my mind everyday about what I want to do when I get back. It is something that is going to take a lot of prayer to figure out. I figure I could go into the air force for 4 years and have college paid for after and then go into humanitarian aid, or we got a ride from a guy from South Africa who works fighting against kid trafficking and saves kids lives all the time. I think a job like that would be super fulfilling. I have no idea - too many choices. All I know is I am at least going to have to have a plan for my life before I think about getting married. Everybody going home is getting married super fast!

   Working with all these families though, I am definitely learning what is needed to have a happy family. There are tons of stuff that just destroy families and Satan is behind everyone of them. For real the only safe way to raise a family is the gospel!

   Well, love ya guys ,                         Elder Bigelow

February 17, 2014 - Beira

This week I can't even explain how many miracles we are seeing in our area. We had 7 complete investigator families at church even though it rained! We watched ‘Work of Salvation’ with our zone and are trying really hard to work with our branch leaders. We went and visited our branch president because he was coming off and on to church and not a lot was happening in our branch - We have a lot of inactive recent converts. So we just went and asked him how we could help and showed him that we support him and want to work together and it was a super nice lesson with his whole family. He had a super good plan in reactivating these families and asked our advice. So Sunday after church he schedules branch council and he sits down with us and all the leaders and he says “today we are not going to talk much I just want us all to come up with a list of in-active members and an area to start and we are going to go out and visit these families right now and give them home teachers and visiting teachers and next week we will gout with a different group and visit other inactives and give them home teachers and visiting teachers.” He really stepped up and has an inspired plan. I don't think I have been in a branch here where home teaching and visiting teaching has been really working but he has a whole plan of who everybody is going to account to and everything. We also visited our elders quorum president and had the same type of lesson and things went super well. The future of missionary work is the members! 

    This week we are going to baptize Zaria, the wife of Joao who passed away. They were taught pretty much of everything and were literally about to open the marriage process and get married. I know the relief society will help her a lot and she is a super strong lady.

     I am not sure if I wrote you guys or not about a new couple we found 2 weeks ago, Joao and Rosa, but they are one of the most prepared families I have taught. They have come to church twice, kept all their commitments and today we got all his marriage documents. By next week we should be able to open the process and they are getting baptized and married on march 8th. We also have like 4 or 5 super solid families in Macuti 2 which were references. 

    One of our investigators, Sergio, called me this week while we were out walking and was like ''I am kinda in a tough situation. I am in jail and my wife doesn't know yet'' and after he said that I tried to ask him questions but his phone didn't have very good connection so I couldn't understand anything, I tried calling him back but they took his phone from him - guess he only got one call and decided to call us. So we were super worried trying to figure out what happened. We talked to his wife later and she found out and told us what happened. So he is a guard for some Chinese guy and was working the night shift and fell asleep so when he fell asleep the place got robbed and the Chinese took him to prison. While he was there they found the stolen stuff so all charges against him got dropped but the police wouldn't let him out until he paid 2000 met. Super corrupt!  But anyways he got back and came to church we were able to talk to him he is super funny. Their area was super flooded and they came to church anyway. He may or may not lose his job though.

   We are going to have a lot of baptisms in March and April I think. The people here are just super prepared and as we work with the branch and take care of our recent converts the Lord will lead us to these families who will get baptized.

   I called some of the families I baptized down in Maputo and Aderito and Fatima the couple in the ‘It's a Miracle’ video (that the missionaries made) are planning to go to the temple! They already have passports which is the most expensive part! Andre and Maria are doing awesome. He told me that Stenio and Jr. are enrolled in missionary school (seminary).   Samuel and Maria both have callings - he is in the elders quorum presidency and is doing work. I talked to the Manga elders today they said Maria, a lady that Elder Ostler and I baptized, is still going strong. Now I just need to call Bobo, the guy I baptized in Inhamizua, and try to get him back active.

   We are just staying super super busy and the weeks are flying by! It's crazy. Thanks for the story you sent about Cathryn. That is awesome she is fine. You had me worried the whole letter. And as for the ASU info can you send that to me please? Thanks.  I just want to check some stuff. When you talk to Colton you will have to let me know and tell him to write. That is nuts he is already back. I am going to cry for sure when I leave. So many things have happened here on the mission and I don't want to go back to the world.

  Love ya guys,

                         Elder Bigelow

Oh and Lucia gets back tomorrow so we are going to go visit her.

February 10, 2014 - Beira

February 10, 2014

This letter won't be super long. I wrote Ransom about a story and asked him to forward it to you guys but things went well this week. 
{letter sent to Ransom:

    Well this week I am going to start out with a miracle we have seen in our area. So like a week and a half ago we were walking in our area of Macuti doing contacts because our lesson fell through and as we are going in and out of theses houses we see a teenager about our age just sitting on these steps in front of his house. Usually we don't contact men that are not old enough to be married but we started talking to him and asking if his parents were home. So he opens up his gate and we go in and talk to his dad, Zacarias, who is like a giant teddy bear - just the nicest guy ever - and we go and sit on his porch. So on the porch I look over and there is this lady just laying out on a make-shift bed who looks super super sick. Literally no muscle on her body - just skin and bones. So we start talking to her and her name is Lucia and she is Zacarias' wife who had been sick for about 6 months. She couldn’t really eat anything - she couldn't walk - nothing. The whole time I felt we were sent to that house for a reason and I kept thinking it was maybe just to teach them about the plan of salvation before she died. During the whole lesson she couldn't really talk much and kept spitting into this rag. So we shared the plan of salvation and talk to them and before we leave she asks for a blessing and says “if I ever get better I am coming to your church!”
    So we explained to them what a priesthood blessing was and I anointed her while Elder Pecham sealed the anointing. I was shaking super bad - the spirit was really strong and I wasn't even the one giving the prayer - but I had a really strong feeling she would get better and in the prayer Elder Peckham said she would walk again. 
     So we went back a couple of days later and had been calling them but nothing happened in the first couple of days. But this week we went by to see how she was doing and her kids said she had gained back weight she walked around and she travelled to Niassa to visit family! So we haven't seen her again yet but she gets back this week so we are going to visit them! They are going to get baptized for sure!

     We also had another investigator who was really sick that it almost looked like he had the same thing as Lucia - just super skinny- nothing but skin and bones. When I first got up here he and his wife were about to open up the marriage process to get married but he got worse so he couldn't even really walk either. He went into the hospital last week to receive blood and we gave him a priesthood blessing as well, but afterward we kind of thought he might not make it. Then Saturday we found out that he passed away. It is just super sad because his wife is pregnant and they have 2 little kids. It hit my companion pretty hard because he found and started teaching that family. We still are planning on baptizing the wife and I know the church and branch will help her a lot.}
     We bought a soccer ball today so we can play soccer on the beach every morning for exercise and we went to the grand hotel. So the Grand Hotel -you will have to look it up online- I guess it used to be pretty much the nicest hotel in Africa when the Portuguese were here but when they left it just got wrecked- like totally destroyed. Now there are 3000 people living in it because it's free. They don't have to pay but it is so trashed! I took some pics I will have to send some. The city has been trying to kick everybody out who is living there because I guess the foundation is super weak. The spiders in there are literally as big as my hand! So we went up on top and took some awesome pics of the beach. 

    This week we had 4 new families at church! We have found a lot of awesome families since I have been here and have been asking references from literally everybody even if they reject us in the contact and have been getting a decent amount. We have 3 or 4 families that were being taught before I got here but it is sad that we have had to drop a few of them because they just lost desire. We are working really hard to get two families baptized and trying to get the zone excited! Tons of families were baptized here last year but a lot of them were not really taken care of after baptism and so there are a lot of inactive recent converts. The number of baptisms in our zone has gone down a lot but I think that as we learn to take care of our recent converts and help families get to the temple they will be more willing to give us more prepared families to baptize.

     I am going to be super sad to leave but it's nuts I already have flight plans! [He will arrive in Phoenix on April 22!] I am just trying to do everything I can to make the time I have left on the mission count. I got an email from Logan today he is awesome -it made my day! I guess I will just figure things out with college when I get back because I was thinking as well maybe it would be better to just do one more semester at ASU and then transfer to BYU. I heard BYU is cheaper for people out of state because they pay member or nonmember but the deadline already passed for fall semester. But you can still start my application for UVU just in case and I will be thinking about what I want to do. I want to take some Portuguese classes and try to major or minor in Portuguese and then see from there. I speak okay Portuguese but some classes would for sure help.

   Love you guys,

                    Elder Bigelow

 A spider as big as my hand!

This tree is on top of the roof of the Grand Hotel. It just started growing up the side of it!

February 4, 2014 - Beira

February 4, 2014

The weeks just keep flying by faster and faster! But things are going great here in Beira. Elder Peckham and I have been being superblessed with new families to teach. I don’t even know how we are going to find enough time to teach them all this week. Yesterday we had 8 lessons and last week we had over 20 new investigators. We have a goal to baptize at least 2 families this transfer.

     Since last week Beira has been having tons of problems with energy. Manga has not had energy (electricity) or water for a week. For now those elders are staying at the Beira chapel. We went a few days without it but somehow our neighborhood got it back. So everything is going good now. 

    We are working in two areas: one called Chipangara and we started working in another area called Macuti. We just switch off between them everyday. Zone conference was awesome! We talked a lot about family nights, working with the members and helping our investigators make and keep commitments. This week me and Elder Peckham also gave a training to the district leaders about the importance of working with members and helping to strengthen our branches. Here in about a month or two there are going to be 3 new branches just here in Beira and I think another 3 in Manga! We downloaded the broadcast from the 1st presidency ‘the work of salvation’ and want to watch it with all the members here in Beira. I know that the Lord has a lot in mind for Africa and that here in no time missionary work is going to explode! Elder Bednar said it is like Mexico or Brasil in the 70s but that the church will grow even faster here. I have been so blessed to be able to serve in Mozambique where the people are so accepting!

     Well love ya guys,

                      Elder Bigelow

 I took a picture with 2 mac the rapper from Inhamizua- I've told you about him before. Cool guy. 

With Elder Hamilton of the Seventy.