Feb 23--Last Transfer

Heyo!

This is my new second half. He is number one. I LOVE HIM TO DEATH. I am finishing training him, which means when I am ready to go home he will be ready to go off on his own. He has been here for 7 weeks. We are seriously both on such the same page it is unreal. We are both 83637489% committed and have seen some tremendous miracles.

 Because of a lot of cleaning to be done and another really bad haircut I am running low on time so I will give you just one story.

 --It was a hectic night and we had not had time to re-plan for the night because things had shifted around and fallen through. Visiting our "prospective elder" list was on the schedule but we had not had time earlier to select the people. We said a prayer and E.R. started to choose which ones he though looked good. We checked the info on five and they all lived outside our area, we found one finally that was in Reston and we went. We got there, said another prayer asking for guidance and a miracle. We went on knocked on the door a few times with no answer. we started to walk back and President Riggs' voice came into my head saying, "God sent you there for a reason, always knock around," so we turned around. We see a house that looked possibly Hispanic, so we knocked it. A guy opened up and said, "oh hey guys, come in, it's really cold." We were taken aback, but even more when he said he is a member, fell away a while ago but knows he needs to come back. His kid is 8 and wants to go to church and he is living with his new girlfriend. We really want to help him out and he says he is ready to come back.

Elder Rascon and I have contemplated direction from the spirit a lot. When we live worthily and are working are tails off, and then are willing to follow our feelings magic happens every time. I am so glad I have recognized that.

Have a great week! I love you all!

Love//

Elder Bigelow

Here is our district-- both sides of us

Week of Feb 16--Cold

I am on the metro riding into tysons to get picked up to go to the
temple today. We are going to do baptisms for the dead with some
recent converts of ours over the past little while. Hopefully we will
be able to get some good pictures. It will be cool to go and do the
baptisms for the dead, I have not done them for a loooong time. It
will be even cooler to go there for the first time with some of our
friends who have recently been baptized.

This week has been a good one. Most of my high moments were connected
to the spirit being recognized in retrospect, seeing it work in others,
or having directly touch me.

First thing. I was on exchanges for the day with Elder Jared Oran,
whom you know. He asked me to prepare and share with him a little
about following the spirit all the time. I was finally able to
recognize and understand all the times that I have been guided by the
spirit in my mission and how often the spirit actually did guide me
before my mission in various circumstances. It was cool to make that
connection and be able to apply how I will be able use that same
direction in my life when I will be home.

I was able to go back to a previous Ward to participate in the baptism
of two HOMIES: Sonia and Miguel. I baptized Miguel and that was cool,
but the really great thing was that after he came out of the water and
we were changing he said. "I felt something really different when I
came out of the water. I felt really good and could only think about
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I think it was the spirit." Elder
Clark and I said, yeah it was! That was pretty cool.

Last thing. During sacrament meeting a family we have recently started
visiting who has been totally inactive for a year or two came and was
happy to be there. The whole family came, even the crazy kids. I sat
with them and tried to help tame the kids so they could get through
sacrament meeting. As I was talking with them another family who has
been inactive for the past two years came and sat down on my other
side. I was really excited for them. During the sacrament I felt
something special. That was cool. It definitely was just as satisfying
to help them get there back in the game as helping someone be
baptized.


Moral of the story--
I am glad I can recognize the spirit.

1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
from all sin.

I like that, and I can feel it


Love//


Elder Bigelow

Ps. Waiting in the metro today was COLD. It was 10 degrees and windy
everyone was dying, especially that girl in the far right.

Week of Feb 9--Fast

This week has been one of the fastest weeks I have lived I think. I
hardly remember it. All I remember was working hard with little
results. But then looking back, we have finally seen progress this
week. We were able to find some really cool people, and make some
great connections.

I'll tell you one of the stories:

First: osvaldo, nelly and joel

We have been trying to diversify our finding techniques to try and
find prepared people. We have in the past tried many things but one
thing we had not done was focusing just on potential and former
investigators. In this process we blocked off an entire night to
check these types of people. After many failed attempts we found a guy
who said his son was a member and a returned missionary.  So we go and
knock the door. A jolly looking Bolivian opens the door and we ask him
if Osvaldo is there. We got in and started talking, we found out he is
actually a member, it's just he hasn't gone to church in about 25
years! He said he has become catholic again for his wife and his son
isn't really baptized anywhere we think... The best news! He has SOOO
many questions, and they are all sincere. His first question was,
"where does God come from, like did he start somewhere?" He had so
many other questions from things like how can I know how the spirit
talks to me to what do I have to do to get baptized... He loved coming
to church and mostly because he liked learning, not for the people,
but I think he liked that too. He is thirsty for knowledge of God that
his parents have neglected to give him over the years due to their
grueling seven day a week work schedule. They all love us and all seem
to have a hidden curiosity to find out more, or rediscover a buried
testimony. We are excited for them.

Anyway, I love you. Time is FLYING



Love//
Love//

Elder Bigelow


Ps. I thought you'd enjoy one of my new "changing of behaviors." Or at
least that is what I call them. Every time I am scared to do something
or feel like I am prompted to do something I am tempted to rationalize
away I say "scared" and my companion pushes me to go do whatever I am
thinking about. It has made a few interesting situations. If a good
story happens of it this week I will let you know!

Week of Feb 2

This week has been a good one. We have been working hard with on and
off results, but wonderful things have been happening. It is
interesting how much work and perhaps testing of faith goes in to one
miracle. We sometimes will knock doors and talk to people in the
street for a whole day with no "results." Later something always
happens, but I have learned to enjoy the ride, love the work and
appreciate my personal growth as I go through challenges.

Some of the highlights from this week-

-last night was nothing but good it was a build up of all our effort
throughout the week. Everything fell through so we decided to go and
try previous investigators and potentials from previous missionaries.
Our records said that it was a man who's son was a member in Bolivia
and even went on a mission! We knocked and he opened, we asked for the
name we had written down. He said that person wasn't there anymore and
has gone back to Bolivia.(he lied, it was actually him) after that he
decided to let us in and told us who he really was. We got down into
the nitty gritty with his relationship over the years and he said he
is actually a member, baptized more than 30 years ago but has "gone
back" to being catholic because of his current wife. So the story gets
longer and more complicated so I will just tell you that he invited us
back, his son who is not a member is down to learn, so is his wife.

-on Saturday we were finally able to get into contact with Anthony. He
was taught be missionaries pretty seriously like 6 months ago and even
had a day he was planning to be baptized on. When we talked to him at
first he wasn't really interested and said he hD no time. We were
finally able to get in and sit down and have a real discussion. As we
were able to really identify his needs and address them he opened up.
He decided he does need Gods guidance stronger in his life. He also
decided that the best way to start that relationship up again was
1.reading the bible 2. Meeting with us 3. Reading the Book of Mormon.
3 of our favorite things! We are excited to keep teaching him.

We went to dc today. It was fun because we got to go to some of my
favorite museums. The hirshorn and the American history museums. They
were both cool but we BLASTED through them. Seriously so fast. I
decided that a cool museum might be a test for my girlfriends to check
their cool scale. Check out how they handle themselves in museums.
They will have to meet the equilibrium. They might want to spend
WAAAAAAY too long or not even want to be there. We will see though.


The biggest lessons I learned this week were in patience, charity,
hard work, diligence and finding fun in all of them.

Love//

Elder Bigelow

It was a pretty, windy day