August 5, 2013 - Matola

This week has been busy busy,

   We were running around all week trying to get everything ready for the wedding of Ricardo and Lina and their baptism with their daughter Dercia, trying to do wedding documents for 2 other families and going to and from Maputo because my companion was sick.

    The wedding was super nice!! I honestly want to invite a bunch of members from here to come to the states when I get married and throw my party and dance and sing. It is probably one of the funniest things to watch. I can’t even explain it but I took some videos. The funniest part is the ceremony they do to give their gifts to the couple afterwards! I was like on the ground laughing the whole time! They go in families and everyone starts singing and they all dance their way to the couple to give them the gift and scream and yell and then put the couple in chairs and lift them up and throw them around - it’s crazy. Ricardo’s parents are super old and speak mostly dialect like the picture perfect old Mozambican couple and they were party animals! The videos I have of them dancing are super funny. They got married at the church and sang and signed the documents and then went to their house and had a huge party afterwards. Then at like 7:00 that night they were baptized.

  Their baptism was pretty crazy: so the zone leaders called and told us the font was slowly draining and they couldn’t stop it and there was no more water in the chapel. The water was already super low and it was like 40 minutes til their baptism. They like to show up late for everything so we stopped by their party again which was still in full swing and told them we had to go quick because next week is district conference, so their baptism was now or in two weeks. Anyways we get there right on time but there was only a little bit of water, so we had to do the baptism on our knees. So my companion tries to baptize her first,  but even on their knees there wasn’t enough water. So I went in and held down her legs while she was baptized sitting down! And then my companion baptized him sitting down. I baptized Dercia, who is only 8 so she could do it kneeling down, but it was pretty crazy.

    On Sunday I had to translate for a couple from the Philipines who just moved into our branch - super hard to listen and talk at the same time.

    Hey did you guys get an email from President Kretley? You have to watch the video on his blog. (presidentandsisterkretly.blogspot.com) I can’t watch it for some reason, but the couple we baptized in Maputo, Aderito and Fatima are in it!!

    This week is going to be crazy. Transfers are next week, we are getting 16 new missionaries this week, and district conference is next weekend. We are opening the marriage processes of the two couples this week - I know I said that last week but we worked super hard and didn’t quite get it all last week.

    Well, love ya guys! Tell Anne and Wes congrats for me, I am super excited for them and Hyrum.

 Elder Bigelow