July 15, 2013 - Matola

This week has flown by yet was so long and jam packed,

   I guess I will start out with the guy we gave the Book of Mormon to that I was telling you about last week - Vincent. So we went by and it was only him at home because his wife flew to Atlanta this week. I couldn't believe it but he was kind of busy and didn't really want to sit with us. Too bad but we got 15 minutes out of him. So we taught the restoration in like 10 minutes and the spirit was super strong - like probably one of the strongest times I have felt it but he said his wife had told him not to make any commitments to us before we even started. But I thought for sure he would read and pray and we invited him super boldly and he says “No! I will not read or pray about the Book of Mormon. Maybe come back next week when my wife and kids are here.” Normally we would never go back to someone who just said no like that - one of the few times it has happened. But we both feel we should go back again this week and try to sit with the whole family, so we will see. They are Catholic but not active and they are married.

     Also this week we found some really cool new families. One was a reference from a recent convert family. All of our lessons fell through on Saturday - honestly like 10.  Saturdays are like magic - marking lessons - but they never go through. So we call this family, Samuel and Maria and they are awesome. We sat with them Saturday and went back yesterday and they read and prayed and think they have an answer and accepted baptism!

    We are teaching 2 families that should get baptized this transfer. Ricardo and Lina and her sister, Nucha., who already have marriage process open and are super awesome. They never miss church, they read and everything and are getting married and baptized on the 3^rd.  And Andre and Maria who have 3 kids, Jr and Shelton and baby Camila, who are getting baptized. This week was crazy with them. They have been coming to church but we talked about the law of chastity last week and they were super iffy about marriage. So this week we went by and talked about prayer again and getting answers. They were having trouble getting along with each other. I am going to be a certified marriage counselor by the time I get home – haha - but we had them read 3rd Nephi 14. I looked in the front of my scriptures because I have a glue-in about ‘the Book of Mormon answers the questions of the soul’ and one was how can I improve my marriage relationship with that chapter. So the next day we go back and they had read and they were telling us they want to get married next year because their parents want to come who live in Lachinga way north. Then my comp talks about just legalizing and have the party later and they were all over it! It was a miracle. So later in the week we read the family proclamation and it helped a ton!! They asked for a copy and the spirit was super strong. We went by the next morning to help with documents and he was washing clothes outside instead of her!! So we are just waiting for documents this week - his family has to send his birth certificate from Lachinga. But I am super excited for them.

       Also yesterday I got super sad news. So that picture I sent with Joao and his parents, Candido and Elsa from Inhamizua, right? So after I left he travelled and they have not been able to sit with them a lot, but he got back this week so they went by and she was super sick. And Elder Awbry called me yesterday and told me she passed away! I am super sad! I love that family. I have been thinking a lot about that the gospel comes into our lives when we really need it. I just think how hard this is for him and then how hard it would be if we hadn't contacted him and taught their family. Please pray for them this week.

     Also an old couple, Carvalho and Albertina from Inhamizua are getting married and baptized!! They were eternal investigators - honestly like 3 years. I thought they were members until like 3rd transfer there. But when I found out they weren't we helped them with documents to get married and finally, on Saturday, they will get married!

   Next week will be the open house for our new chapel so I will write on Tuesday instead of Monday I think. I love Matola and my comp. I hope I stay here for a while. Well love ya guys!

   Elder Bigelow.

  (Can you send me Holden's emails? Thanks.)

July 8, 2013 - Matola

 This week has been super nice. Matola is really close to Maputo – like 30 minutes – and tons of rich people.  There are a lot of poor people, too, but I went into some houses this week and I thought I was back in the States! Our area is like a 20 minute chapa ride from our house, but it’s super nice.  I helped train the sisters, and then more came and took over Maputo.

    Matola just has tons of sand roads and big houses.  I don’t really know how else to describe it.  A lot of people have cars. There is a KFC about 2 minutes from our house.  Our house is awesome.  Six people and they are all super cool.  So I told you Augustinho, the ward mission leader in Nampula, is here waiting for his visa for England, and also there is an Elder from Manga, Elder Domingos, who is waiting to go to Angola, that I knew when I was serving in Inhamizua.  He was the ward mission leader in Manga 3, so when I would do divisions with the Manga 3 Elders in my house he would walk with us.  I was actually there when he opened his call.  He had a cookie stand and was trying to save up enough money to serve.  They are super funny together.

    I am learning a ton from my companion especially with Portuguese. He doesn't speak English but I am going to start helping him because he wants to learn. He is from Sao Paulo, so in 2014 I am going to go to the world cup and stay at his house. We made a goal to baptize 4 families this transfer which is going to be way tough but I know we can do it. We already dropped a lot of families this week but we have 1 who has the marriage process open getting married on August 3^rd, and 1 more who we are trying to help get documents. This week we are going to find tons of new people to be able to meet our goal

    Matola just had a brand new church built chapel constructed!! It looks super nice it is actually getting dedicated on the 28th of this month so the whole week before they are doing a huge open house and we have been giving out invites to seriously everybody we saw this week. Super nice and an easy way to start conversations. Elder Lake and Elder Williams who were in the MTC with me are my zone leaders. We went to church in T3 which also has a branch about 30 minutes from here by bus this week and will have to do it for about 3 more until our new chapel opens. So Matola 1, Matola 2, and T3 are all meeting together - it is pretty crazy. Tonight we have a super nice lesson set up. So we were doing contacts and we pass this house but I felt we should go back and call and finally their son comes out and his parents are not there so we ask him if they have a church and he says ‘no.’ So my companion feels like he should leave a Book of Mormon and we got the guys number and he marked with us for tonight but I've got a good feeling about this family. I will tell you what happens next week. Well, thanks for the letters!

     kanimambo

                       Elder Bigelow

July 1, 2013 - Maputo

Transferred again!!!

   So there have been a ton of changes this transfer. 8 new elders and 2 sisters came. 6 elders left.  2 more sisters came and some areas opened up so me and my companion both left Maputo 2. The office elders will stay here with the sisters. I really feel so blessed to have served here though, and helped Aderito and Fatima get married and baptized. We also found a really cool family last week, Lucas and Marta, who came to church yesterday. We will give them to the office elders to teach. I am going to Matola - about 30 or 40 minutes out of Maputo - to be with Elder Fontes from Brazil. I will learn super good Portuguese and am way excited. This week’s zone conference was amazing! This weekend I walked with Elder Hamrick, one of the new elders from California. It was awesome. I love walking with new missionaries. I think working in the city was a great experience for me and I have learned a lot. Also cool thing our branch mission leader from Nampula, Augustinho, got his call to England but is serving in my Matola house until he gets his visa! I walked with him a lot in my 1st two transfers in Nampula and he is the one who actually found Joseph a place to live when he got kicked out of his house. I talked to him during zone conference and it was awesome. I also saw another kid who we were teaching his family but he was the only one who ever really came to church in Nampula on the street this week who lives in Matola.

   Does David have his own email yet?  Tell him I say happy birthday and that I love him. I can’t believe he is 17!! And I hope he is having fun in Kansas. I am super happy that you guys got to go to Utah to see Morris be blessed. Tell everybody hi for me!

   Elder Bigelow

June 24, 2013 - Maputo

Hey,

  This week was way nice. We started off with pretty much nobody to visit but still got in like 12 or 13 lessons. Tons of first lessons and I felt like we got pretty good at 1st lessons and the restoration. We got rejected a lot but found 2 super awesome families. One we contacted on the street (Lucas e Marta)  and the other was a reference from one of our other investigators we just met. His wife is from South Africa and so we taught in English but he was with his brother David and we sat with him and he is super interested. The first lesson with him reminded me of the 1st lesson with Bobo, both were just super open and happy and excited.

   We invited him to be baptized and he accepted so we wrote the date down - August 3rd - on the back of the restoration pamphlet we left and he was like “You guys forgot to write down what time on the 3rd? And what do I need for this!" haha. It was super nice. He is a police officer. 

  I really love Maputo. It is soo much different than Beira. Beira was an awesome experience too, though. It felt more like Africa -especially Inhamizua, but they are honestly like different missions. Our branch is way nice and we are trying to work more with the members. They help a ton, especially references, so this week we are going to try that approach way more than contacts. New elders and sisters are coming this week!! 9 elders 3 sisters and a couple who got here Saturday. They are headed up to Beira so we will get to walk with the elders til transfers on Monday. This Friday is a zone conference with President as well! 

  My idea of leaving a sign up sheet for bible studies is working! We left it at a place called King Pie FAST FOOD (super super nice I want to start it in America, they put like burgers and steak and ribs and all kinds of stuff in what look like pot pies on steroids!) But anyway the owner grew up in the states and has helped us a ton. We ate their for free and we always talk to him, but anyways, we are going to print out a ton of these papers and have the members help us put them all over the city and see what happens.  

   Love you guys

                                         Elder Bigelow

June 17, 2013 - Maputo

Hey happy fathers day Dad! Hope you guys do something super fun like fishing or somethin! Thanks so much for helping me come out on my mission and for helping me before I left. I really hope things go well with Woodland and work. I love ya dude.

     This week was pretty crazy. We found 2 families and lost 3. Maputo is such a different place then Beirra but I am learning a lot. I guess it's more of what people think of when they think of doing missionary work. A ton of knocking on doors . The good news is we had a super cool lesson last night and the couple does not even have a church yet! We taught the gospel principles class yesterday with like 5 minutes notice and it went pretty nice. We taught about the sacrament. And we knocked the biggest house in our area and we didn't even get rejected! It's only a single mom who lives with her kids and she was not home but I  don't know why I love knocking huge houses. It's like playing the lottery - you hardly ever win but I'm sure if you do it feels super awesome. And having lessons in big houses is way cool. Even though the families we taught didn't really accept our message we had some pretty powerful lesson this week with the spirit. I am learning to be more bold with people. I think Inhamizua really helped me a lot with that.

     I bought a batik of Captain Moroni! Well the guy is still making it but on the title of liberty I am having him write all the words in Shangana, the dialect here in Maputo.

     Right now I am studying the New Testament. I am still in Matthew but I am learning a ton and I am in Mosiah of the Book of Mormon in Portuguese. 

    Things are going good and I am loving the work! We get to talk to tons of people every day with our 35 qualified contacts a week and this week we have a goal of 45 or 50.

     (Oh and by the way you might want to take that picture of me and Candido and Domingas  and Joao down in the church. I think he is on my shoulders and holding kids is against the mission rules. He was was crying to me saying 'Elder por favor me carrega!' So I did without really thinking. But now I learned my lesson. 

     David - that is super awesome you get to go to Kansas by train, man! I am super excited for you. You have to write me while you are there and tell me your crazy stories. And going by train is way fun. I have ridden a couple on my mission.

    Well love ya guys tons,

Elder Bigelow

June 10, 2013 - Maputo

Maxaca,

    I guess I will start off with the story of the 2nd wedding reception last weekend – the ‘copa de aqua.’ So it was at outside of Fatima’s mom’s house but it was decorated really nice. We showed up about 2 hours late on purpose and were still like an hour early before they started. We had some lessons marked already so we didn’t want to stay very long. Aderito and Fatima walked in and they had a ton of more songs and stuff and it was super nice. So we went up to say congrats and bounce but his dad talked us into sitting down for a second and I knew we would never get out. So before they brought out and served food we tried to sneak out but her grandma caught us and was offended we were leaving so we had to stay ‘at least for food’ she said. So they cut the cake and served us first, it was kind of awkward, everyone was just looking at us and I had no idea what to do so I just ate it haha super good. They brought out all kinds of weird African food that was super good. Long story short we ended staying like over an hour and I got some pretty funny videos of this old lady dancing. 

    This week we did a lot of looking for new investigators. Last week we knocked apartment buildings and found a guy named Emilton who is way cool. The second lesson we taught the Book of Mormon and he said the first time we showed up he felt a ‘fire in his chest’ and he promised to read the Book of Mormon and come to church. The only problem is he disappeared this week and is never at home and he didn't come to church but we are going to go by again today. 

  We also found a really cool family, Jeramias and Sheila by knocking doors. It was crazy. We had knocked a ton of doors already but we decided to knock a couple more and this lady runs out and before we even said anything she asks “How did you know where we live? Come in! Come in! Come in!” I was super confused but she said her husband was home so we went in. Turns out my companion, Elder Wartena, and his last companion had contacted them like a month ago in a totally different part of town. They had just moved into the house we knocked and it was an awesome 1st lesson. We were pumped! The next day we came back and it was an ok lesson and they promised to come to church. So Sunday we walked with 2 branch missionaries -Elder Wartena went to walk with Emilton to church and I went to get Jeramias and Sheila. But neither of them came. I was pretty sad. And on the way back the branch missionary I was walking with almost got eaten by a huge dog like the one on The Sandlot. It was pretty crazy. There were 2 dogs, both as big as rhinos, in this fence and he was right next to it when it jumped at the fence right next to his face and almost broke out! I was super scared haha. 

     We are trying to think of new ideas on how to find people. The zone leaders were knocking doors and trying to get in by teaching the restoration with the bible asking people if they could come in and do a 10 minute bible study with them. So I had an idea of printing out a ton of papers offering free bible studies at peoples houses and leaving a sign up sheet for whoever wanted to leave their name and number and address. Street contacts yield like no results here and it would get us contacts without all the work, and if they signed up hopefully they were really interested. So we dropped our 1st paper off at a place called Pie King and the guy who owns it is from Michigan and he gave us free pies -it was way nice - but it didn’t work. Nobody signed up. But this week we are going to go big scale. Elder Ostler printed out super nice like official sign up sheets and posters. Hopefully it works. 

      Well I don’t have a ton of time but I’m in the mission office and President Kretly said ‘hi’ to you all.

Love you guys,

Elder Bigelow

June 3, 2013 - Maputo

This week was super nice. So first of all Aderito and  Fatima were married, baptized,  and confirmed! Super excited for them. It was awesome. SO originally it was supposed to be a collective wedding with 8 couples but... long short short... it ended up just being our couple and the district who was going to fund it was not going to anymore. We found all this out like a couple of days before the wedding. So we explained to Aderito and Fatima it was just going to be a simple party afterwards and they could still invite their 20 invites but everything would have to be donated from branch members. So we had meeting with our branch leaders and Aderito and Fatima and asked if anyone if anyone would donate food or drinks and have like a small party afterwards. Like super simple. So our Elders quorum said they would donate a couple of  sodas and stuff but our relief society president was super skeptical about food and we could still make the party happen. Then 2 days before the wedding we had one more meeting to finalize everything but it was still super up in the air. My companion was super worried. 

             We show up Friday to decorate right before and  this member helped us and it was super nice!! B:ut at 14:00 when the wedding was supposed to start it was only Aderito but we were expecting it to start late anyways. Then at like 14 thirty this truck shows up full of members and full of tons of food. So much food and drinks!! Then a member comes in with a computer and speakers and we set it all up right when Fatima shows up in a super nice jeep and a parade of like 3 or 4 cars all decorated and stuff and all of their family. So she starts walking in ( with a super nice dress from Portugal) and by that time everyone is there and everyone is singing African wedding songs in dialect their family even had their own mini choir that came and kind of like wedding cheerleaders starting everyone on all the traditional African songs. It was awesome! I love Africa! So the ceremony goes great there were a lot of songs and stuff and then everybody goes out to take pictures so we set up the same room for the party (supposed to be small 20 invites) but by now we have tons of food ( our branch is the best), tons of members and they had a lot of family and friends. So the members wanted to try to feed everyone and just have a huge party and we did! Mozambicans know how to party haha. 

       Their family had a dance team it was like 3 couples all matching and they danced. They had a huge wedding cake, everyone ate a full meal ,there was like a year supply of soda. It was like a wedding back in the States but Aricanized so it was way cooler. I took a bunch of videos and pictures. The couple even broke the floor with their dance, the parents spoke, she threw the flower thing, like honestly the whole sh-bang. I want my reception to be like that haha. 

      So Saturday was the baptism. Elder Wartena baptized Aderito and I baptized Fatima. The feeling of helping a family to be baptized ( they have a little daughter Fofucha 2 super cute ) is really ... let's just say I feel super blessed. And I think our mission helped 8  complete families get baptized this weekend alone each one with their own conversion stories and it makes me want to like cry haha. Our mission is honestly seeing real growth and so many miracles. 

    Oh and afterwards they had like another reception pretty much ( they call them copo de aguas) which means like cup of water but really they are parties - at her moms house and we were invited. It was a crazy story as well - remind me in your next email and I will write you about it next week I still want time to send pics.

      This week we also looked for new families but it has been kind of tough. We walked in a triple with Elder Bender as well and it was way fun he is in his 2nd transfer and had to come down from Quelemone this week. I called Elder Awbrey and Domingas and Candido  are doing good still just trying to save money to get married. I am going to be super happy when they get married and baptized!!

     I can't even explain how much have been blessed and how much I am learning here on the mission. It's like one of the quotes general conference I don't remember exactly how it went but The African people don't have a whole lot of what doesn't really matter but they have a lot of what matters most.