April 8, 2014 - Beira

April 8, 2014

Well 2 weeks left! I can’t believe time has gone so fast! Part if me is super excited and the other part of me is super sad. I leave next Friday the 18th to go to Maputo and we will probably eat lunch or something with President, Saturday I think I will be able to visit families in Matola and Maputo , and Sunday I will go to Maputo 2 branch again and have exit interviews and Monday I am gone!

          We have been super busy - on the 19th our zone is going to have a collective marriage with 7 or 8 couples and the Relief Societies want to make a big deal out of it. Me and Elder Peckham are working to get Sergio and Ana married and baptized along with some single people, Rosa, Flavio, Lidia , Joaquim, and Luis. Hopefully everything works out and they are all ready by the 19th. We are also teaching a super-awesome family right now, Manuel and Eugenia, who are a reference from Sergio, and a couple we dropped but they came to church Sunday, Felizberto e Palmira.

    We did 3 divisions this last week, one with Munhava and I went and walked with Elder Maizane from Matola, and I went on a division with Elder Proksch, who is our district leader, and yesterday we went on a division with the other dupla from our house, Elder Thomas and Elder Hatfield. They have been struggling getting contacts and lessons in their area so we decided to do a double division and all work in their area. It worked out super nice and we got tons of contacts.

       As far as general conference I probably won’t be able to see it until I get home. Last Sunday was a normal fast Sunday for us but I bore testimony because I will be leaving.

        Cool story for the week... Thursday we were walking in the middle of our area, Chipangara, and we are on this tiny little road and it was night and we see the Snelson’s (the senior missionary couple in that area) truck pull up and they asked us where the house of a member was, so we all walked together and showed them. They were going to watch a kid named Fernando open his mission call so we decided to go with and on the way there Elder Snelson told us his story. So Fernando lost his dad when he was young and grew up with his mom and brothers and sisters. When they got older his older brother moved down to Maputo and joined the church and then his older brother passed away. Two years later Fernando joined the church and his mom was taking the lessons when she died as well! So after all this he saves up money for a passport to go on his mission over a long period of time because they are super expensive for people here. Finally he gets his passport and does his medical exams and his passport gets robbed!!! So he had to start all over saving up money and by the time he gets his second passport his medical exams expired … so he did them again and anyways he opened his call and is going to Angola!! He bore testimony at the end -there were a ton of people and the spirit was super strong! He sacrificed tons to be able to go on a mission!!!

    Yesterday we also found 3 chameleons by our house (sent a pic) and things are going super good. We are staying super busy in fact we have divisions again with Beira 1 tomorrow.

                       Love you guys

                                             Elder Bigelow