May 27, 2013 - Maputo

Maputo is super nice!

   Our house has a dryer!! I haven't seen one of those since the MTC. There is a place called Preimeire where we do our shopping that is huge it makes the Shopright in Beirra look like a Family Dollar compared to Walmart or something. It's funny because I remember the first time I went to Beirra from Nampula I thought Shopright was the best thing ever! Our church is super close to our house and is 3 or 4 stories. There are tons of people to talk to but it's way different. Every one here is in a hurry to get to work or home. I feel like I just got transferred from like Pie Town to downtown Phoenix haha. 

   My companion and Elder Coombs (who just went home) have worked their butts off here and next week we are baptizing a family!! I am so excited! Aderito and Fatima - they are awesome. I really hope the 2 families I helped in Inhamizua get baptized.

    By the way, the picture of the family I sent last week was Candido and Domingas and their son Joao (John) super original. And the things in my hands on the railroad racks were just umbrellas.

     I live in the best house in the mission. The secretaries (Ostler and Miller) and assistants live in our house as well and right now I am emailing you from the mission office. Our district and branch has 8 missionaries. The sisters (the only 2 in Mozambique) are in our zone. They are kind of training each other because they came at the same time and are the first sisters here. Elder Wartena and I have been doing ‘12 weeks,’ a new training program, with them this week. They are doing super well and have already had some baptisms. Our branch is doing super well and this weekend we have a lot going on - our couple will get married Friday, baptized Saturday and confirmed Sunday.

    Well things are going great here and life is good. 

   Have Dad and David write me about Black River through Dads email and next week I can write them back

        Love you guys,

                                  Elder Bigelow

May 20, 2013 - Last week in Inhamizua

Well transfers were super crazy and unexpected  again!

     My streak of always changing comps stays alive. I thought for sure I was going to stay one more here in Inhamizua and see the couples here get married but I just got transferred to the middle of Maputo! Actually to the very first house and area I ever walked in when I first got here in the country! I will be in the same house as the assistants and office elders. I am super excited! I catch a plane tomorrow morning. 

     This week president came up and he did a training for all the district and zone leaders about the 7 habits of highly effective people which was awesome. He has been doing them for a while. I really want to read all of those books when I get home. Also he looked for land for a new chapel in Inhamizua and we got to have interveiws. The Inhamizua elders are going to start going out to Dondo and working once a week as well. There are two families there who really want to be baptized. So my area now should have a lot of success next transfer. My companion will be Elder Wartina from Orem. He is way cool. And Blake emailed me today. 

   I am going from the middle of the jungle here to the middle of a huge city. It will be the 1st time I have really worked in a city except Nampula but it was a lot smaller. A lot smaller. 

     Some Highlights from Inhamizua:

  - the Inhamizua Zombie

  - 2 mac and his album: get dream or die trying

  - Bobo

  - 4 companions in one area: Hoffman, Ostler, Andrade, Awbrey

  - being in the branch presidency

  - Monkeys all over the place by Pinto's

  - Chapas, chapas and more chapas 

  - jungle and machambas everywhere

  - fixing our bikes and helping Pasqua and Amisse get married

  - the two couples we found this transfer

  Our branch is getting a lot better. We have had over 80 people for the last 3 weeks. I am really going to miss this place. I have been here for 4 transfers and have seen a lot happen. Maputo is going to be awesome though. Thanks for the emails. Love you guys

  Until tomorrow’s day!  (It just means ‘see you later’ but a lot of people say it here when they try to say tomorrow) 

                                         Elder Bigelow

Pictures!

More pictures!

 Que bencao ainda mais!!

May 13, 2013 - Inhamizua

Hey guys,

    I got to skype Ransom and Katie after I skyped you, but only for like 5 minutes. I got to see Morris for the first time! Sorry you guys couldn’t hear very well. This week went pretty good though as far as the work. We have two awesome families. Candido and Domingas and Lazaro and Jolena. They are both starting their marriage documents and coming to church. We actually left a Book of Mormon at Lazaro's house because he was late coming back from work and the next time we showed up he had already read all of the intro and the Joseph Smith story and everything and understood it perfectly! It made me super happy. Both of them live in mud huts and they are super humble and really want to do what is right. I really think both of these families will be baptized next transfer.

    I'm glad Dad is doing good and hope you guys have a blast at blackriver! You guys have to send me pics. Well next week we will find out if I'm staying here in Inhamizua or leaving. I honestly have no idea and will be happy either way.

   President Kretley is here this week and we are having a district leader training Wednesday. Super excited.

            Love all you guys,

 Until Tomorrow’s Day

Elder Bigelow

May 6, 2013 - Inhamizua

Wow sounds like you guys had a way crazier week than me. Tell Dad I love him and hope he feels better. You guys will have to tell me all about it on mothers day next week. So here is the plan for calling. The Bueno's have offered to let us use skype on Sunday and I scheduled for 15 thirty our time I have no idea what time it will be there like 6 thirty in the morning I think. Can you guys look and make sure? Also if you could send an email saying if that will work or not and your skype username before Sunday that would be awesome. Can you do like 3 way skypes? Because I super want to talk to Anne and Wes, Ransom and Katie and their kids as well. I don't know if it would be possible to try to set that up before I call? If not don't worry about it. I will check my email right before and if skype won't work I will just call.

      Well this week we had a marriage at our chapel. It went well and we officially have one more married couple in our branch! Hopefully it will show the other unmarried couple it is possible and it is worth it to keep the law of chastity. Pasqua and Amisse were way happy. So we baked them a wedding cake. (If there is time I will send you a picture) But we stayed up forever the night before and it didn't really look too amazing but they loved it!! Said it tasted super good. We did homemade whip cream, chocolate chips and 2 layers with strawberry jelly in the middle. Elder De Oliveira helped us a ton.

   My dreams came true this week and we fixed up some old bikes that were sitting in our chapel to use in our area. They were way trashed so we paid an investigator named Candido who has a little bike shop hut to fix them up for us. He is awesome and I think for sure they will be baptized. Remember these names: Candido and Domingas. They are the next couple to be baptized in Inhamizua. I had division with the zone leaders this week and we taught them the law of chastity and they accepted it and are already working on documents.

      The mission is changing a lot along with the church here in Mozambique!! Beirra is superclose to having a stake and this weekend there were some meetings for the presidencies we went to about how close we are and what we need to do to prepare. Inhamizua branch is way behind the other branches but we are working our hardest to help it. President Kretley wants to be able to start the papers for Beira to become a stake in October! Super excited. They assigned a guy from Beira named Jack Sandies to attend Inhamizua every week and come to our presidency meetings and everything to help out our branch. He is super awesome and served a mission here and in Angola. He is going to help a ton.

      There are only 2 more weeks this transfer and I think I will probably be leaving. I already have been here 4 transfers but we will see what happens. Super cool about our stake presidency! Love you guys! Hope everything goes good this week for Dad.  Until Sunday.

            Elder Bigelow