Last May of the Mish

2 May 2016

This has been another fantastic week!  The last week of thetransfer and we wanted to go out hard (if one of us were to go out).  let me sum up our week with the aid of photos:

Alot of the week, we’ve been helping a member, Juliano, build his house.  There’s a favela built on top of a lake so sometimes water decides to come up out of nowhere.  But João, our baptism from last week, works building houses, so he’s also been helping out.

There was a cool activity with all the young women (which is now huge in our ward) that we helped with.  We’ve been teaching a lot of youth, baptizing, reactavating, etc, so theyouth is currently the biggest part of the ward.  All the young women recieved a bandana, and we all had a cool idea.

Anyways, remember Lila from 2 weeks ago?  Well we just baptized 2 of her cousins, Isreal and Isaias.  Isreal did not wantANYTHING to do with us the first time we met, and Isaias didnt take anything we said seriously.  Anyways, they went to church to watch Lila’s baptism,and loved it.  Now Isreal (17 years old) wants to serve a mission, and the rest of the family is excited for church this week.  It’s also really cool because they’re really good friends with João now.  So everyone’s helping each other.

In other news, yesterday we recieved a call from the assistants about transfers.  And there were only 2 people in our zone being transfered, and Camargo and I weren't one of them!  So yeah!  I’m gonna kill my 4th companion!  I think I’ll make a photo of 4 cross bones and put the names of all my comps that have ended their mission with me.  Young, Rodrigues, Belbin, and now Camargo!  Unfortunatly, Elder Rasmussen, one of our District Leaders was transfered. We gotto know eachother in Castelão and he’s super cool.  He also makes movies and we’re planning on combining forces afterwords.  It’ll be pretty cool.

Also, Elder Bellon is going home.  Which is crazy because when I had arrived in Trindade he was still really new. With 6 week transfers, I only have 4 more 0.0

But there you go. That was my week.  I love you guys so much and am really excited for this Sunday!

Elder Biggs

PS: I should be able to call the day before as usual, 4;30pm for you guys is 8:30 for me, which might be a little dificult.  But I’ll talk to President Fusco, and on Saturday will probably beableto call and sort it out with you guys.

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11 May,2016 

Skype Calls & Some Pictures

"Time Flies" next week I'll hit the one year and a half mark! 

Christmas-2014:

This photo is a lost to the ages of time and the fact that the MTC didn’t allow us to take photos...  and why would you even want a picture? It would’ve just been me with a headset with a billion other missionaries...

Mother's Day-2015:

Little Tayte and Hayden's hair is still normal

Christmas-2015:

Tayte got bigger and Hayden got dorkier

Mother's Day-2016:

Tayte is a zitty gorrilla, Hayden has more hair than Ellie, and Dad turned into Tom Hanks...  And Mom, Reygan and Ellie are a pretty as ever :)

My Study Desk

A box of cigarettes

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16 May 2016 

River Baptisms

This was a very cool week.  First of all, Elder Kusuda and I are really getting along.  Our companionship is very different from others that Ive had.  We talk and joke a lot less than my past companions, but we like eachother a lot.  He’s a quarterback from Utah and is half Japanese, and super rich.  So, I’m already to eat a whole lot of pizza and Burger King!

So, let’s just skip to the cool stuff.  This weekend the ward had been planning a huge activity at a cabin outside of Fortaleza.  The church owns a patch of land in a tiny town (a lot like Pine) and calls it “Camp Desert,” but being from the church, is super nice!  Anyway, Bishop wanted us to go really bad.  But it would be on Saturday (our busiest day) and we knew that President Fusco wouldn’t like the idea.  On Friday night I called President and asked and he said that he didn’t really want us to go, but it was our decision in the end. 

We had invited a TON of youth outside of the church and so we felt like it would be productive to go, also, there were 2 kids who would be baptized that week who would be going too.  We called bishop and told him that we weren’t sure and he hung up, and called us back after about 2 minutes saying, “I just off the phone with President Fusco and told him everything that you guys are doing in the ward and he said that you guys could come!   So we went and it was really cool!  Almost everyone we invited went and we decided to baptize the 2 kids there! 

I baptized Mariany (Israel, and Isaias’ sister) and Felipe (a neighbor of theirs and a cousin of some less actives that we’re working with) in a river! Finally!  I’ve always wanted to baptize someone in the river! So know I can check that one off my bucket list!



Afterwards I called President and told him how we had been able to do a whole lot of good there, we contacted a lot of friends that the members had brought and were able to meet all of our goals that day.  President trusts me to work hard and asked me if it was worth it to go and I said yes.  He said alright then, and then thanked me for the respect. 

This week our zone (which has been the worst zone in the mission), which usually just baptizes 1-3/week was able to baptize 6.  With just 5 companionships too, so its definitely getting better here! 

I love you guys very much and I’m learning a lot here everyday!

Elder Biggs

PS: This guys walks around selling candy as a clown.  And he doesn’t sell it in a normal way. This guy walks around the favela yelling at people to buy it.  “Get your butts out here and buy my candy!!!!”  or “Quit blaming the president for not having money!  Quit being lazy, work for a change so you can buy my candy!” etc…  

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23 May 2016 

1 Year and 6 Months

This week was pretty uneventful.  So lets go to some pictures!

Seminary has started up again here, so the teacher organized a huge visit where they would get everyone of seminary age and visit every single person that wasnt going to seminary.  Ususally there are only about 3-5 people who go regularly.  But with the help of some of the newer members (Isreal and Gabriel), they were able to completely fill the classroom.

There was a few transfers this last week, so we had to take a new zone picture... so: The Sul Zone!



This week we baptized a 16 year old girl named Vanusia.  She has had to change a whole lot, but the coolest part is, is that she was able to prepare for her baptism in exactly one week.  We found her a week ago through Felipe, her nephew.  She told us that she wanted to change and be baptized.  Normally, a person would need at least a couple weeks to be prepared, but Vanusia really dedicated herself and was able to be baptized yesterday.  It’s really cool when you find someone who is ready to make a difference in their lives and start doing things right.

I hit my 1 year and a half mark on Thursday

I wann see if you can read this...

Our new 5 year old bishop.   This kid, Wilker (Wilkey)
is hilarious!  I'll film him one of these days so I can show you. 

But that was my week.  I love you guys so much and am really excited to see you guys again.  But in the mean time,  Ive got so much stuff to do, so I’ll sure have a lot of stuff to worry about.

Elder Biggs

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30 May 2016  

Pizza, Cake, and Miracles

This week passed by really fast.   On Tuesday the Stake President called us, and the other zone leaders (thereare 2 zones in this stake) in to ameeting.  He told us of 2 wards that will probably devidein December and basically told us of the plans of the stake.  It was very interesting to see what goes on “behind the scenes” in wards and stakes and stuff.  Then afterwords, hebought 8 pizzas and a bunch of Coke! So, it went pretty well!

Here’s a picture of some weird dude on the side of a bus looking at me funny

And last night was Isaias’ birthday, to which we were invited

Ok, now a pretty cool story.  Never in the history of the Brazil Fortaleza East Mission has it been able to baptize 300 people in one month.  So this month, being the last full month of President Fusco, we had all decided to baptize 300!  This last week we had a long way to go.  We had to baptize a lot of people.  For Elder Kusuda and I, we had 3 people to baptize.  Everything was certain too.  Then out of nowhere, one mom didnt want her daughter to be baptized.  One didnt pass the baptismal interveiw and the other didnt show up to church.  We were totally out.  But we knew that we needed to baptize someone, we just didnt know where.  So we started looking looking looking until we found a family of recent converts.  Leticia, the mom of this family told us of a 10 year old girl named Rosimeire, who had been going to church for a long time now but whose mom had never allowed her to be baptized.  We then called her and her mom in and talked with them.  With Leticia there, the spirit was verystrong and the mom decided that it was ok, and she let her get baptized.

Leticia’s husband, Ivanildo baptized her on yesterday (which was his first baptism).  Its very interesting to see how the Lord asks us to do things and maybe it doesnt work out too well. But like Nephi with the brass plates, we cant give up and the Lord will prepare a way.

I love you guys and I’ll talk to you guys next week

Elder Biggs

Adventures in April!

4 April 2016

General

This week was a very different week.  First of all, it rained every single day.  Which is really weird considering the fact that it rains here about as often as it rains in Arizona.

One thing that stinks about the rain is that everything is getting kinda cold, which isn’t too bad except the showers (which are already cold) are freezing!  We live in a little apartment next to an apartment with 4 other missionaries, and I decided to take advantage of the rain and show them how to take a shower like a man.

To which they all decided to join me that night:

*I know I'm skinny, but I don’t care...

Other than that we had to go to the center of the city to go to the doctor for Elder Camargo, and while we were there we drank Coke like a Sir,

.....and I might’ve found a Canon store that I didn’t know existed!

Yeah, I got pretty excited about that!

Conference was another incredible experience! We watch conference at the same time that you guys do.  So its in the afternoon and at night.  But the priesthood session we watch at 6:00 am on Sunday.  After that, we stayed at the church for a while chatting it up, and someone caught a sexy photo of me:

Seriously, everybody in the mission has at least one picture of me like this.

Also, on Sunday I was asked to baptize Maria de Fatima, a woman who Sister Nevin had taught.  She wasn’t there so we got creative.

Also, like the jump suit?  They couldn’t find any others so i had to wear this, but it was actually really comfy, just wasn’t able to sit...

Anyways, that was my week.  I love all you guys and am so excited for 5 weeks (not that anything special will happen)!

Elder Biggs

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11 April 2016

Quick Week

This week was really fast in some aspects and really really slow in some others.  But I'll just start with the pictures again and see if that helps:

Last Monday we brought a young family to a family home evening with some members of the ward,  Thiago (red shirt) and Gleiciane (blue dress) are investigating the church and she told us of an answer that she received about the Book of Mormon.

One night she wasn’t able to sleep, so she decided to read a little of the Book of Mormon we had given her 2 days earlier.  Afterwards, she remembered that we had asked her to pray for an answer if the book was true.  She then closed her eyes and asked. As she asked (with her eyes closed) she felt a light in front of her (as though some light was in front other and she was seeing through her eyelids) and when the light became so bright she opened her eyes and saw nothing.  She then woke up Thiago and said "hey, you know that Book the missionaries gave us?  Yeah, I think its true!"  Really cool!  They’re not married so we gotta do that, but they’re a wonderful family!

In other news, we took some sweet model shots of me just in case I wanna be an actor one day

Here’s a third model shot.  i took it with this guy so that I would look more beautiful in comparison.  He's so ugly! Right?

We ate a lunch at home and made a big lunch (send more Mac n' Cheese please!)

And we had a mission conference this week where I found out that my son (Elder Rodrigues) is now training, which makes me a grandpa!  So here’s a pic with my missionary posterity!

But that’s all for this week.  I love you guys and am excited for Mothers day here in 4 weeks!!

Elder Biggs

PS. Im teaching Elder Camargo English and he says "HI"

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18 April 2016

Now We’re Rolling

This week, Elder Camargo and I were really able to go crazy here working hard and doing our very best.  And as we do our best, the Lord blesses us with miracles.  Literally every day this week people stop US and ask US if we can talk with them.  We don’t have one person to baptize this next week, we have several!  It’s incredible.  Things are really starting to work out for us here (which means that a transfer is probably close D: But hopefully not)

And now: Pictures...

We had a cool family home evening with a recent convert family who invited this huge family to visit, as well as a couple other people.

This is our church building here - one of the oldest in Fortaleza

We had made a deal with these two guys that if they brought 5 people to church this week we'd buy them pizza, and they brought 6. So... a deal’s a deal.  The man behind me is the bishop.  One of the best bishops I've ever seen, Bishop Dos Santos.

This is us with 2 other missionaries in our zone.  The guy on the end on the right is our ward mission leader who just got back from his mission.  The guy next to Elder Camargo is Elder Clements from Texas who got here 3 weeks ago

Pretty photo of a lake in next to my area:

Lila who was baptized this week.   She was going to be baptized NEXT week, but she loved church so much that she wanted to be baptized as soon as possible.  These two young men are her cousins who will probably be baptized this week

Another beauty shot: 

But yeah.  That was my week.  I love you guys. Talk to you here in 3 weeks!

Elder Biggs

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25 April 2016

Really Good Week

This was one of the best weeks of my mission so far.  The week started with interviews with President Fusco.  Unfortunately, this was my last interview with him. He’ll be heading home in July I think, and our new President will be President Leite (pronounced Lay-ch).  President Leite was President Fusco’s zone leader and after the mission was his lawyer, so basically as President Fusco puts it, “if you thought I was tough, you have no idea what you got coming for you.  Good luck!”  President Fusco is pretty funny but is honestly one of the greatest men I’ve ever met or heard of.  I’ve already argued with members who talk bad about him because there really isn’t anything to talk bad about.  The members say, “oh, it’s a good thing that he’s leaving, huh?  You guys will finally be able to play soccer, and watch TV, and use the internet for more time, etc.”  But I’ve never been sadder to see someone go home.  But I’ve heard that having 2 presidents is cool, so we’ll see how this goes.

2 weeks ago we were visiting some people with a member, Pedro who told us to pass by a Mateus (15 years old) who lived close by and we decided to visit him right then.  He had already been taught everything by other missionaries, and had a lot of friends in the church, but didn’t want to be baptized because he hadn’t received an answer yet.  So, we decided to say a prayer right there and have him ask if the Book of Mormon was true.  He said a very quick simple prayer and ended.  Afterwards, I asked how he felt, and he grabbed my hand and put it to his chest.  His heart was beating like crazy and he had a huge smile on his face. He said “ok, NOW I can be baptized” These last 2 weeks we re-taught him everything and he was baptized yesterday after church with the whole youth of the ward watching.

These last few months we’ve been working with a man called João who has been working hard to be baptized since I’ve arrived.  He’s had to wait for a while because he’s been involved in some pretty heavy stuff.  Has basically done everything accept kill people; Ex-armed robber, drug addict, mafia king, etc.  It’s been years that he’s left that world, but still has had problems with the word of wisdom.   Anyways, we went to visit him (way earlier than we normally pass by) and saw him mad as heck.  Why, because someone had just tried to kill him.  Literally!  This kid (well, 22 year old) tried to stab him, because he had already tried to fight him, but João kicked his butt.  So we decided to take a walk with him and ended up sticking with him for the rest of the day.  We called President Fusco to see if João could talk to him and President Souto Correia (counselor to President Fusco) came to talk with him.  João told him everything that had happened, told him all about his past and how he wanted to be baptized.  After the interview, President Souto Correia came to us and said “Elders, baptize him now.  He’s ready!”  So we had decided to baptize him the very next day.  A problem came up with his work and he had to leave that day and just came back Sunday afternoon, and when we found him (by chance as he was walking home) we asked him how he was and he told us “exhausted” and we said, “well lets go and baptize you right now?” (This at about 5pm) and he was like, “sure, let’s go” and we headed to the church and quickly baptized him.  No baptism party or meeting or anything, just a prayer, the baptism, and another prayer.  But it was one of the best baptisms I’ve had here on the mission.

This was our week.  It’s interesting how as my mission moves on, I start to pay more attention to the miracles and spiritual experiences that I have rather than the funny or cool stuff that happens.  I still have those moments, but after a year and 5 months, this has become my life.  Like they say in the Book of Mormon, not even a hundredth part of the history could be told, and it really feels like that here.

I love you guys, and I’m excited to see you and the new house here in 2 weeks!

Elder Biggs

PS:  Normally, when it gets cold, people huddle around fire pits to keep warm. But here, missionaries huddle around fan pits to keep cool:

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2 May 2016

Another Fantastic Week!

This has been another fantastic week!  The last week of the transfer and we wanted to go out hard (if one of us were to go out).  let me sum up our week with the aid of photos:

A lot of the week, we’ve been helping a member, Juliano, build his house.  There’s a favela built on top of a lake so sometimes water decides to come up out of nowhere.  But João, our baptism from last week, works building houses, so he’s also been helping out.

There was a cool activity with all the young women (which is now huge in our ward) that we helped with.  We’ve been teaching a lot of youth, baptizing, reactivating, etc, so the youth is currently the biggest part of the ward.  All the young women received a bandana, and we all had a cool idea.

(Fear the Fork!)

Anyways, remember Lila from 2 weeks ago?  Well we just baptized 2 of her cousins, Israel and Isaias.  Israel did not wantANYTHING to do with us the first time we met, and Isaias didn’t take anything we said seriously.  Anyways, they went to church to watch Lila’s baptism,and loved it.  Now Isreal (17 years old) wants to serve a mission, and the rest of the family is excited for church this week.  It’s also really cool because they’re really good friends with João now.  So everyone’s helping each other.

In other news, yesterday we received a call from the assistants about transfers.  And there were only 2 people in our zone being transferred, and Camargo and I weren’t one of them!  So yeah!  I’m gonna kill my 4th companion!  I think I’ll make a photo of4 cross bones and put the names of all my comps that have ended their mission with me.  Young, Rodrigues, Belbin, and now Camargo!  Unfortunately, Elder Rasmussen, one of our District Leaders was transferred. We got to know each other in Castelão and he’s super cool.  He also makes movies and we’re planning on combining forces afterwards.  It’ll be pretty cool.

Also, Elder Bellon is going home.  Which is crazy because when I had arrived in Trindade he was still really new. With 6 week transfers, I only have 4 more 0.0

Ive reached 150 lbs again and have gotten a lot stronger in just this last month.

But there you go. That was my week.  I love you guys so much and am really excited for this Sunday!

Elder Biggs