Good Morning

Good morning! I am stoked to be a live and I hope that you are all as
well. I have learned a lot over the past 7 days, as you might expect
from a missionary, and I will share a little bit of it with you. I
have really learned to love to learn on my mission and I am so
grateful for that. It is a gift that will serve me for the rest of my
life. Before my mission I liked learning the things I liked to learn
about. I now have a deeper appreciation and love for all knowledge,
wherever it come from

Stuff that happened this week
-We moved this week. Cleaning up after years of gross missionaries is a big job.

-After a whole day of not really finding anyone interested, people
canceling and bailing on appointments I got a little flustered and
just started calling a list of contacts. We talked to a drunk guy,
another drunk guy, some fake numbers, a not interested guy, some no
answers and then out of the blue we spoke with Abbey, who said that
she would  be happy for us to come over that very night and we could
talk outside her apartment complex. We had a great conversation and
she invited us to come back another day. I love people who want to
learn.

-We taught the Spaniards again. I am not sure if I have told you about
them but they are the cousins of some members in our ward who are
visiting to learn english. They are two girls, Elizabeth and Melissa,
22 and 18 respectively and they want to learn! So we love to teach
them. Every time we go in and teach them they have so so so many
things cleared up. Lights just turn on in their heads when they read
the Book of Mormon and hear what we have to say. The coolest part
about it all is that at the beginning  Elizabeth was ultra skeptical
and closed , yet could not ward off her curiosity. Our goal is to help
them be baptized before the go back to Spain in September.

-We had a spirit rocking third our in church taught by our dearest
Dany Matos who is always a firecracker. He told a story about his
mission and the powerful change he saw in himself and in others. He
read many of those classic verses in Alma 5 that make you shake in
your boots and re think your life a little. "Have ye spiritually been
born of God? Have you received his image in  your countenances?...if
he have experienced a change of heart...can you feel so now?"That
experience motivated a lot of the following thoughts.

I have decided I want the last 6 months of my mission to be a lot more
eventful that the time I now have behind me. I feel like I have not
been really prepared or worthy for all the miracles I desire up until
this point of my mission. That does not mean that I think I am perfect
or that I think that I am now the best missionary this world has even
seen and deserve every miracle between here and the moon but I finally
understand how to truly access the grace of Christ and receive divine
help OFTEN.

I want so badly to forget about everything that ties me down and just
make miracles happen. To be a part of them, to change the lives of
everyone I see. Of course I know there are still going to be TONS of
people who don't care at all what i have to share and what I have to
say but I still want them to understand. This week through diligent
efforts, combined with faith I will do my very best to access the
grace of Christ to change the lives of those we teach and every one
else that just "happens" upon us.

 I love you all lots-

Love//

Elder Bigelow

my address is now 4400 4th st. N apt 149, Arlington VA--we moved---this
is our new apt in shambles that we have been trying to find time to
put together over the past 4 days