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!