March 24, 2014 - Beira

Well, I was going to send pictures of Joao and Rosa’s wedding and baptism but the computers here won’t let me send them.

   Our week was super crazy. We had to get everything ready for the wedding, mission leader conference ( .. we had to present the plan for our zone ..) and district leader conference. So last transfer our focus was on working with the members and strengthening our relationship with the leaders while helping them fulfill their callings. The missionaries in our zone who really applied it are starting to see a lot of success so we knew that working with the members couldn’t just be a one-transfer focus but that it is going to take time to strengthen the branches here in Beira. Anyways last week we were over at the Snelsons (the senior missionary couple) and Elder Snelson was talking to us about the temple and how few members here from Beira have been and that in the Beira district which includes all the branches from Beira , Manga , Inhamizua and Dondo, only about 10 couples have been sealed and I knew 1 or 2 of these couples in Inhamizua who were inactive when I was there. The stats were super sad, over 100 families baptized here in Beira last year and not one of them have gone to the temple. So Elder Snelson talks about how easy it is to get to the temple and we were like what? What are you talking about? And he tells us about this plan that is happening here in Mozambique where any family that wants to go to the temple for the first time, if they save up all they can the church pays for the rest. They just have an interview with the branch president and decide how much they can pay for passports, travel, food and everything and the church will help out with anything rest. Kinda like the atonement right? Anyways we were all taking and I think the biggest reasons nobody is going to the temple is 1) because nobody knows how, they just knows it costs tons of money and 2) this plan has not been very well announced or explained and so nobody knew the church would help. I think I had actually heard about it before but I had no idea how it worked or how easy it was. So for the district leader conference we gave to the district leaders in our zone, we decided to make a goal to have each dupla pick a family from their branch and help them get on this program and to the temple. We had Elder Snelson come and explain the plan to everyone and afterwards found out that President Kretly is actually giving a training this week about temples to all the branch presidents. It was super cool. I really feel like the next step for Beira and what the Lord wants is for families to get to the temple. Elder Maizane, the Mozambican Elder I knew from Matola, was at the training and he was super excited and asking tons of questions because he wants to help his family in Matola get to the temple.

  Yesterday President and Sister Kretly gave a training on the new family history program ‘My Family’ and talked a lot about temple work and the importance of getting to the temple. He said being a member your whole life and never getting to the temple is like being stranded at sea and swimming swimming simming and as soon as you hit the beach… dying. It was actually one of the best trainings I have ever been to, the spirit was super strong and the members were pumped!

     Zone conference is Friday and we will figure out what is going on with the branches. I think we might have some more work to do before they split though.

     The wedding went super well with Joao and Rosa and afterwards we were going to baptize them but the water was super gross . Dark dark brown – couldn’t even see the bottom - so I called President Kretly and asked if we could baptize them on the beach but he said no, instead we rented a chapa Saturday night and went out to Manga to baptize them there in superclean water. President was there giving the family history training so everything worked out. Joao and Rosa’s family were just singing super loud wedding songs the whole way over and there were too many people so my comp had to stand up the whole way with his butt out the window haha. Joao and Rosa are a super awesome family

   Also this week I got a call from Abreu and Carla from Matola they still aren’t married or baptized. They have had crazy document problems and then as soon as they were going to open the process his dad got super sick and they had to pay for him to go to the hospital. I was super pumped he called and then I talked to elder Jarvis today and he said Carla and Abreu are going to try to open the marriage process this week so their marriage and baptism will be the Saturday I am in Maputo right before I go home so I can be there to watch!! That would be soooo awesome - I love that family!

   Things are going super well and I love it out here. Today I saw Elder Ebmeyer, who is working in Manga, and he is training a member I knew from Maputo 2, Jose, who was preparing for his mission when I was there. I did a couple of splits with him and he helped us out a lot but he is here serving until he goes to Angola. It was really cool to see him today

          Love ya guys. Tell dad I would love to talk at a fireside when I get home!

 Elder Bigelow