Monday, October 6, 2014

General Conference

General conference was great! I hoped you all loved it too. It was amazing to be connected through a common stream to so many people from so many nations and in so many languages. Conference brings back a lot of memories of times past.  This conference was a little bitter sweet, about half way through I realized it will probably be my last as a missionary. The time for me has gone so darn fast, i am not sure how it has been for you though. I am happy I still have six months left to get some more stuff done. I know it will go by in blink of an eye, I think in retrospect nearly everything looks like that. I am grateful that I have the time to live and serve that I do right now. I really want to kick its butt.

I am really excited for the fast paced working 100% of time drive for my fourth quarter.

-This week was jam packed with meetings. We had to plan a significant amount for 3 of them and then we got to sit back and relax and be taught for some of those. I have become really comfortable in being up in front of many people to teach and train. It was a miracle how well I was able to train in spanish this week too, because all the spanish missionaries got together. My companion said I sounded like an educated Puerto Rican! I have no idea if that is really good or not, but at least it is not "white guy."

-Yesterday while in conference we got a text from a wonderful women named Lesly who has been taught for a long time and is just waiting on divorce papers so she can continue progressing who had an amazing miracle due to conference. She told us..."I now have it confirmed to me that Thomas S. Monson is a Prophet of God." We said, WOOOOO. She has been working on that for a little while and we are pumped she received that confirmation.

-We knocked into a young man the other week who happens to be a member of a less active family in another ward. He was sort of interested, but he came to conference with a young man in the ward, and now he is pumped on church! He even came to priesthood all dressed up. We love when peoples hearts change.

I loved being able to focus for a moment on personal revelation. I hope that you loved it too. A spiritual extravaganza is usually followed by some sort of call to action. I personally received all sorts of calls to action, to change this and that, to focus more on a particular challenge I have and to think with the future in mind. I hope that you will all join me in a renovation of promise and commitment. It seems that we as human beings need this "renewings" of things we should be doing all the time. But that's okay, that is why we have them, so we actually do what we need to!

I am so grateful for second chances and change. They make my world go round, I would be SOOOO stuck without them.

I hope you love them too.

Lots of Love from Elder Bigelow


 ps. a nice thought from one of my favorite sister missionaries brought about by conference
Science is cool, I guess. I am a fan of rhetoric, logic, philosophy, and intellectual inquiry. But, and thank goodness, my knowledge of truth comes through the Holy Ghost from an all-knowing and all-loving God. --Sister Walker

OOTHHHERRRR PICTURRSREss from my companion


Week of Sep 29



Hello all, I hope things are going great.

I have been really pleased recently with the change that I have seen
in me, in my area, in my ward and in my zone.
I read a quote today by FDR's wife, Eleanor? while in DC that said
something along the lines of," having his illness taught him two
things--endless patience and relentless persistence."
I think those are the things that have made the difference in all of
the areas I mentioned above from everyone involved.
Perseverance is a hard thing but I think it will really bring me
happiness in my life. It is gratifying and filling. It changes me and
others as I continue to work to endure.

In other news, we have been practicing our teaching a lot recently to
try and become better at asking questions. Questions are a powerful
thing. They motivate thought, change hearts and bring the spirit. The
more I focus on every individual I see I the happier I become and the
more successful I feel. The power is in the one! focus on them. I love
how it makes me feel.

I am sorry for the short scattered thoughts today. We rode bikes down
to dc today, it was great. I loved it. We rode all over the mall and
got a tour of the Kennedy Center. Didn't you play there a couple of
times?  I figure if not, then you definitely went to some concerts
there. Enjoy the pictures!


Love//

Elder Bigelow




Week of Sep 22

Another Week Gone By

This week was a good one. I think all my weeks are pretty good ones now. I just like being a missionary. I have grown to love it a lot. It did go rapidly fast though. That has also become a norm. Every week just flies by. I blink and it is over. This week was just like that.
highlights of this wildly fast week were some of the following....
-We had our very last lesson with Elizabeth and Melissa last night. It was amazing to see them as they prepare to go back to a world where no one knows them as Mormons. They talked a lot last night about how they are excited and happy to go and share the gospel with their friends and family that they love. They are SOOOOO different now in so many great ways. I didn't ever know that I would be able to see the difference in someone's face, but you really can. They are bright or shiny or something different. I am excited to keep in contact with them and help them in their efforts to share the gospel in Barcelona.
- We met Juana and her family after a kind of reluctant let in that we really had to persist for we taught an amazing lesson. After prodding and probing for what doubt she had in her head she started asking questions. Then she blew up, asking every doubt it seemed she had had locked away for a long long time. She then asked the question, "wait, so did revelation stop or did it continue? can people receive direction from God today?" --BAM-- then we taught her the restoration. We are going back to answer the q's she will have about the Book of Mormon on Wednesday.
-On Friday while trying to find people to talk to in the morning we saw this guy stumble running towards us from down the street--no shirt on. We said, "he's hammered". He got to us looked us straight in the eyes, and confirmed our suspicions. He proceeded to tell us that he wanted us to come over and hang out, that we really needed to borrow my backpack, that he should really put a shirt on etc. We kinda had to run away. Nice guy though.
I have learned this week a lot about persistence. There is power in persistence, in never giving up. Anything is possible with determination. You may fail over and over and over and over and over again, but one day you will make it. One day, what you have been working for will become yours, and yours to share.
I love all of you! thank you for being so great. I will talk to you soon