6/1/2015
Last Week of Transfers
So, this current week is the last week of this transfer, and
we're both really nervous. I know I said I wanted to be transferred, but
right now I want nothing more than to stay here. Elder Rodrigues has only
one more transfer after this (21 July) and wants to finish here. Ive
already got 5 months here, but the first area is generally the longest (6-8
months). But only generally... We'll receive a call this Sunday
telling us if we’ve been transferred or not. We're pretty anxious...
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| After a fun activity planned by yours truly! |
Anywho! This week has been a lot more exciting!
Me and Rodrigues are in charge of activities now because ours are the
funnest! We've been finding tons of new people and the work is crazy! I
love it. We literally don’t have enough hours in the day to visit all the
people we need to visit. This week we'll be going on splits with members
3 times because of this!
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| Baptism/Festa! |
So the woman who was baptized last week has an 8 year old
daughter who is kinda in love with me. And I'm not just saying
that. She told us, "Next week I want Elder Biggs to baptize
me!" She even wrote me a little letter with about a billion hearts on it
<3 So, this Saturday we baptized her and had a HUGE party for
her. Super cool, and the next day we confirmed her and her mom. 6
baptisms here in Trindade!
This week we had training in Araripina (neighboring city)
with President Fusco. That was super cool because it was just our
district of 4 groups, the assistants and President. He’s very funny and
very strict. Its a weird combination, but I'm pretty sure he'll be the
first Brazilian Apostle. Afterwards, we headed for a super good
restaurant where I accidentally got R$47 of food. (That's a lot. More than
anyone else) And I was all nervous that I wouldn’t be able to finish it... then
like, 10 minutes later I was the first one done. I may be skinny but I
can eat! As we were leaving, we said tchau to President and said "Oh
Elders! I just wanted you to know that Ive been receiving good news from
Trindade! Its been a long time since Ive received good news from
Trindade. Congratulations!" Yeah, we felt special!
#NewAssistants (E Rodrigues uses #. Its funny...)
Next week our computer time will probably go from an hour
and a half to 30-40 minutes because lots of missionaries aren’t reading the
letters from President, so if my letters are short next week, that’s why.
I love you guys and love reading your emails! Make me
feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Tchau!
Elder Biggs
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6/8/2015
Still Here….. Maybe…..
You guys have never seen anyone more nervous and
anxious than me and Elder Rodrigues! This last week was amazing and
neither one of us wants to leave. He only has one more transfer, and I
want to stay. We talked to the Zone leaders who said, the assistants will
call on Friday. Then they didn’t call. Then on Saturday,
nothing. Then Sunday night (night before transfers) we called the
assistants and they said............. President hasn’t finished yet it may be a
couple more days. GAAGAHAGHAGAH!!!! We're dying here!!!!
Then our ZL called us and told us that he already knows, but isn’t allowed to
tell us. But he did say that one of us is leaving to be a leader
(Trainer, DL, ZL). But he always jokes around so we don’t know if he’s
serious or not... BLAGH!
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| This is Charles. A member who been crazy helpful here |
Anyways, this week, President received a phone
call from a 70 who received a call from an Apostle about a new standard.
He said, Missionaries need to do "this", and God will give them 4 baptisms every
WEEK. "This" is more working with members. 18 visits
every week. Which is actually not too bad considering other visits are
12. That is so baby simple that I didn’t actually believe it at
first. We received this a couple days ago, so will start next week.
But we already started working with members more and: WOW!!! Its
awesome! We reactivated a family a while ago and they’re giving us names
and people to visit. Were reactivating a man right now who gave us 6 new
people in 1 visit whole ALL visited church and were going to visit his entire
class (he teaches Karate) this Thursday! This new standard is amazing!
Unfortunately, our only possible baptism for
this week cut us, and said she will never ever ever visit our church again, so
that’s lame. But we have 5 people ready to be baptized this week, so...
Other than that, there’s not much more to
say. We’ve been so busy that we don’t have much time to do much
else. Its great! The only ONLY thing that could hurt us is being
transferred. so... yeah.
I love all you guys so much and miss you like
crazy! I'm loving my mission right now, but Id be lying if I said I wasnt
excited to come home. Until next week,
Elder Biggs!
Some Pictures:
This is normal...
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| I see nothing wrong with this picture |
The only Elder skinnier than me
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| The only other English speaker in my District. Hes from Tonga! |
Until today actually, I never once thought to
take a picture of our house... So here it is... huge!
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6/15/2015
6/15/2015
Dia dos Namorados (Valentines day)
(I got this from a member: "Message for you" & "I love You" )
So this week was Brazilian Valentines day (which
didn’t really effect us because we're missionaries and missionaries don’t like
girls... because they’re missionaries...) and was the start of Elder Rodrigues'
last 6 weeks! On Tuesday, we left for District meeting and my Tongan
friend wasn’t there. We were then informed that transfers already
happened and... We're staying! Huge relief! So Elder Rodrigues will
finish his mission here and with me (90% sure). Most missionaries never
matar (kill or are someone’s last companion) but this'll be my 2nd! And,
well, it’s not cool. I love Elder Rodrigues, and I totally want to be his
comp until the end of his mission.... But... He’s a touch more trunky
than Elder Young. So right now every other missionary that I talk to say
that Im the matador of the mission, because I’ve killed my first 2 comps.
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| "Vasp" means "slacker". "Seja Bem Vindo" means "welcome" |
Anyways, Tuesday, we had a huge activity and
announced our status with transfers (because EVERYONE was worried about us
leaving). And we were all, "We got the word about transfers today.
And they told us that BOTH of us... will stay!" And everyone started
cheering! It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)
We're working with members like crazy right now,
which is weirding the whole mission out. The members in Trindade have
always been the worst. Not helping and even working against the
missionaries. But right now we're working with members more than we are
without. Which is rare as it is :) Our Recent Convert Wedja, took
us to a Churrascaria for lunch a couple days ago and I drank 2 liters of coke
(almost died).
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| Finally got this picture taken! |
We didn’t baptize again, but we've got a
buttload for next week (lots of young men which is good) so we're
excited. Other than that, that’s about it. Thank you so much for all the emails and love and
stuff. #17moremonths (Elder Rodrigues uses # and I think its funny. Don’t
judge :)
Elder Biggs
This family reminds me a llot of my
family. Kyle is right next to me, reminds me of Reygan, personality and
stuff. The kid behind the dad is Tayte, Hayden is obvious I think, and
Ellie also.
I made this coin make a funny face: We're twins
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6/22/2015
English
Hey, so this week was super fast. After
running around every single day trying to keep up with all the people to visit
and things to do, the days pass by pretty quick.
This week was pretty interesting, first, we have
a new elder in our district. We heard that Elder Bellon (a friend of mine
who kinda reminds me of Neal) is training an American. I
was so excited because after my Tongan friend left I was the only
English-speaker in the district. Then he arrived and I started talking
with him in English. "Hey, how’s it going? Are you understanding the
language yet?" And guess what. He's Brazilian. Yeah "Don’t
look at me. Im a moron" That was great. But right now I'm the second
oldest in our district (meaning I've been in the district for the second
longest) accept for our District leader, so that’s cool. It'll be 6 months
in Trindade on July 5th, so here in a bit. 0.0
We've been teaching 3 young men who are best
friends and super cool. They’ve gotten to know the youth, so we're shooting
for this week and a miracle.
Another cool thing that happened (and I might’ve
already told you this) a Brazilian approached me the other week talking English
asking if I could speak with his English class. So I did :) I
walked in and pretended to not know Portuguese and talked in super simple English
for about 2 hours. It was super fun and at the end, I totally said,
"so yeah, Im fluent in Portuguese and we're missionaries and can we come
by yours houses and teach you the gospel?" It was funny and a couple
people said yes!
So its winter here right now and actually pretty
cold. Well... colder... Like I wake up in the mornings and think,
"wow, its cold" but don’t do anything about it. It’s nice.
Basically it’s only crazy hot after lunch for a couple hours.
So that was my week more or less. Thanks
for all the emails, it makes me so happy when I open my email and there’s like
15 new emails. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :) But
anyways, I love you guys and I'll talk to you next week!
Elder Biggs
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6/29/2015
Slooooooooooow Week
This week in South America is Semana de São
João. Or week of Saint John (John the Baptist or beloved or Goodman, no one
that Ive talked to actually knows. It’s a Catholic thing). So absolutely
everyone has been traveling. We were walking through the streets and it
felt like the walking dead. I saw a little girl walking and told Elder
Rodrigues to get ready, 'cause its about to get ugly... He didn’t get
it...
So last Monday ended and I had 55 cents.
And we don’t receive money until the 15th and 30th. So we were pretty
hosed. This pay period has 3 Mondays (P days) and 3 Tuesdays (district
meeting R$14) and we already had 3 things go down in Araripina (neighboring
city) so were broke. Its fun though. We have members bringing us
food everyday (we don’t ask, they just bring it) and another member is filling
up our drinkable water tanks for free, so we'll live until tomorrow!
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| These are the 3 guys that we're trying to baptize. The one right next to me is Mattheus, son of the politician. |
Last Sunday we tried to baptize 3 young men (who
are super crazy cool. They watch Doctor Who!!!) one of which is the
son of the Vereador (I don’t know the US equivalent, so if you wanna google it
or something, but he’s a politician). This last week we tried for another
miracle by fasting for their parents to sign, but didn’t happen. But we
did our part, they (super crazy excited to be baptized with testimonies and
everything) did there's, so it must not be the Lord's will that they be baptized
yet. But they're cool.
Yesterday I heard the news from a member about
the gay marriage thing. Its pretty devastating. We had lunch with
him yesterday and talked all about it. But he did say something pretty
funny. This is the dad of the girl who drew the picture of me and Elder
Rodrigues: "just remember, there is something worse than have Obama
or Dilma (Horrible president of Brazil) as president. You could be ruled
by a monarchy of Werewolves." I was a little confused, but then
realized he was referring to Doctor Who! There’s an episode that explains
that the royal family of England are actually werewolves. And anyway,
that made me feel better :)
Alright, that was my week. No transfers
yet. But Elder Rodrigues only has 3 weeks left and is trying not to be
trunky. So this means that I'll probably stay until NEXT transfer.
So we'll see. I'm loving it here, but 6 months this Sunday is a long
time. Love you guys and I'll talk to you next week!
Elder Biggs
The girl who drew us, also made this TARDIS for
me. I think its pretty sweet!
I know I know... Im gorgeous!
I don’t know why... But I like this picture...
