Sick... :P

5/4/2015

Sick... :P

Our necks are skinnier and our suits are a bit looser.
Him especially because he had more to lose. But yeah!

This has by far been the most exciting week of my ENTIRE mission!!!  Every day was like a different type of rollercoaster from a different planet of excitement!!!!  I'm just kidding. This week has been extremely boring and I'll explain why :)

On Tuesday we had conference with Elder D. Todd Christopherson, which was awesome!  He was super cool and nice and answered a lot of questions.  After the conference was over, we got to take pictures and say hi to other missionaries.  I found Dustin Rector and took a pic with him, but with his camera, so he has to send that to me.  Then I met up with Elder Wedekind and Elder Kreling (who was leaving for his house the next day).  Afterwards we all left for the bus station to head back to Trindade.

Our pic with an Apostle!  Im in the 3 row to the top 2nd to the left.  This is the whole Fortaleza East Mission!

When we arrived in Fortaleza, Elder Rodrigues was feeling really sick and when we returned to Trindade on Wednesday, we found out he had Dengue.  A disease pretty common here in Brazil.  But it can be very dangerous if not taken care of (especially for Americans).  But by Friday, he was already feeling better. And after 2 days of waiting in the house all we wanted to do was work.  But then... BOOM! I got the flu. The flu? In the middle of Brazil, I got the flu.  I thought the flu was like, extinct here... Anyways, there went 2 more days, then on Sunday, I woke up with a rash covering every inch of my body! I'm not exaggerating either. Every inch!  President said I got Dengue.  But! He’s a doctor and knows how to treat this kind of thing. So I'll bee fine.  The biggest problem is that I can’t work for THREE DAYS!  We worked ZERO days last week and have another 3 this week... Blah!!!  But with all this we actually almost baptized this week. Almost. like, almost...

[This is disappointing, on my camera my face is super red, but on the computer I just look handsome like normal... maybe if you zoom in you'll see it, but these aren’t zits.  My face was actually super clean this day.]

So that's my week.  Not much going on, but this Sunday I can call at any time in the day, so I'll coordinate with Dad. 

I love you guys, and I'm excited to talk with y’all this Sunday!

Elder Biggs

5/11/2015

This'll pretty much just be pictures...

Hey, its been awhile! yeah...  Ok, so I'll try to give you guys a run down of this week without repeating too much from yesterday.

This is how I study. Messy!

The beginning of this week I was still sick and had to stay in the house until Wednesday.  Elder Rodrigues [Hodrigues] had permission to leave with a member and I had permission to stay in the house alone.  That was long and super boring.  One day I slept from noon until 9:30, then 10-6:30 the next morning.  And after this felt great, full of energy, then after standing for like 10 minutes I was already exhausted.  So that was pretty lame :/

Anyway, I don’t remember if I said this yesterday, but Milton the veteran that we baptized, he did attend church to be confirmed last week and we were nervous that he doesn’t want more, or doesn’t want to come to church anymore, but we found out after a couple days that his wife died.  She got really sick one day and before the sun came up the next day she passed away.  It was really hard to see this good friend of our so sad.  We were luckily able to talk to him about the plan of salvation and comfort him.  And right now he’s MUCH better. He doesn’t have kids or anyone else in his life and said that his new family is the church.  That we and the members are his family now.  We confirmed him yesterday, and it’s amazing to see how the gift of the Holy Ghost is already helping him.  He's gone from super sad to "Never Better."

Us with Wedja and her 2 kids Anna Louisa and Bruno!

The only other big update is we finally baptized our investigator Wedja.  Me and Elder Young found her and her BF on Feb 15th! And after tons of work, trying to marry them, him falling away and moving, she finally told him that they will get married or break up, because she NEEDS to get baptized. He agreed butt the next he day said no.  So, she broke it off! (We didn’t have anything to do with the break up btw).  Then we told her that we'll need to wait for a couple weeks, just to see.  But on Saturday we felt very strong that she’s ready. We invited her to be baptized the next day and asked if she felt ready for tomorrow, and she said "Im ready today!" Now she told us that she has never been happier, that her 7 and 5-year-old kids will serve missions, she'll marry someone in the temple, and she'll help us baptize her whole family!  We're super psyched!

The cover I made for my companion "Só mais um” (just one more) 

–since this will be his last planner…

Anyway, that was my week!  I'll send a bunch of pics because the internet is actually pretty fast today! I love you guys, talking yesterday was super fun and actually very motivating.  I was nervous that Id be all trunky afterwards, but it actually had the opposite effect on me!  So thanks!

Elder Biggs

April Adventures! :P

4/13/2015

Not that I'm keeping track or anything, but: 1/5 of the way done!

HI!  So this week has been much better than the last couple weeks!

1) we reached our goal exactly on visits!  Here in Trindade, its extremely difficult to have more than 35 visits a week, and this week he had 54!  Last night we had our last visit at 8:45, which lasted about 10 minutes.  When we arrived at home I made milkshakes out of our homemade Ice cream! That was definitely good!

2) We've got some great investigators right now who've been receiving answers to prayers.  (One, very similar to Joseph Smith's first vision.)  She said she felt scared and awful and dark before praying, but when she finally managed to say it, she felt "weightless" and said that she cried and cried and cried when she knew that the Book of Mormon was true.  Another had a dream where he felt very dirty, saw lots of blue water, then felt clean and the water had turned dirty.  He said after that he wanted to be baptized.

3) We were starving one day, because we're extremely poor since our mission's budget was sliced in half, and while walking in the street we found 2 reais (dollars)!  So considering it a gift from god we bought bread and ate pretty much all of it in 2 minutes.

Some other interesting things that happened this week, I found my first atheist.  That was fun.  And Elder Rodrigues had no idea how to react, but in moments like this, Im glad to be American, where people exercise their God-given right to not believe in God, because I knew exactly how to handle it.  She still doesn’t believe, but she IS trying, so that’s good.

We have a rule that we cant baptize kids under the age of 14 without another member of their family.  BUT, we did get permission from President to baptize a 12-year-old girl this Sunday! So woohoo! I'm teaching English every Tuesday (don’t remember if ive already said that) and I'm getting skinnier every day.  Seriously.  I've already lost 6 Kilos 0.0 [13lbs]

Parabéns Mãe por fazendo quarenta anos!  Feliz aniversario!  Eu estou escrevendo isso em essa idioma, esperando que vocês não consigam traduzir!  Más tanto faz, parabéns!

Anywho!  Things are getting better here.  This area is inferno, but we're working at it.  Oh, and that video where I wrote "hi mom" was a meeting with the Branch Secretary/temporary president.  We weren’t teaching him if that wasn't clear :)  But whatever!  I love you guys like crazy and can’t wait to Skype you guys in 4 weeks!

Elder Biggs

It rained on us like crazy (which never happens in Trindade) and so we took refuge in the church. 

 I took pictures while we waited.

_______________________________________

4/20/2015

5 months and Batman!

This is Bruna.  Her brother wants to baptized 

next week, so we were like, OK!

After 14 weeks without a baptism, Trindade finally had one!  This week we baptized a 12-year-old girl named Bruna.  She’s already read 1 Nephi and is very smart and very excited!

This next week, we've got another baptism set for a 76-year-old war veteran named Milton.  He was in the Brazilian Marines as a pilot, and crashed, breaking off a part of his skull!  But he’s here still, so that’s cool!  We were really worried he wouldn’t except the word of wisdom or come to church, but he did both with enthusiasm, and afterwards said that he found his church!  He's crazy cool!

We've also had a long-time member move from a neighboring city to Trindade!  He’s a little GH (Gloria dos Homens/ proud) but it’ll be nice to have a old man with a big Mormon family in the branch.

The last President (before Elder Young) fell away from the church completely.  And we had talked with him a bunch trying to get him to come back (he fell away about 6 months ago).  But 2 weeks ago we FINALLY hit a spiritual nerve with him, and he’s attended church 2 weeks in a row now with his family!

I told you we like Coke.  We like to freeze it and make slushies. 

 Oh boy those are good!

Anyways, me and Elder Rodrigues are best friends.  Like, we poke at each other, call each other trunky, joke around, and are even planning on making a movie! (spoiler alert, its a slender man movie). I told him about slender man, and now we’re trying to scare the other one! Its fun!

When I started my mission I thought, "Sweet! Im gonna walk every day, only eat a big lunch, always work out in the mornings, I'm gonna be in such good shape!" But... because we walk all day, we burn off all of lunch after about 2 hours, and we don’t really eat dinner. It doesn’t really exist here.  So 1) we're always starving, and because were poor we cant buy very much food, and 2) were always exhausted.  In the MTC, I was doing 30, then 40, then 50 pushups every morning.  But now, after 3 I’ve already exhausted half the days energy.  But this is something that we're suffering together, and I know that when Im old and fat, I'll look back and remember with fondness!

Oh, Batman!  So one night, we'd worked all day and were tired, and at 10:25ish were getting ready for bed, when on the floor upstairs against the wall we see... a baby bat. Dead. And with all the doors and windows closed this means that there’s gotta be a family living IN OUR HOUSE right now.  AND! When we went to get the dead bat, it totally wasn’t dead!  I screamed, but E Rodrigues screamed louder, and not wanting to leave or kill this baby bat, we decided to throw it in the attic where its family probably is living.  So after about 30 minutes of trial and error, I finally got it and returned it.  Elder Rodrigues was to scared to do anything, so he picked up my camera and recorded this whole thing.  But you'll have to wait to watch it, its pretty long and I don’t think I can send it.

But anyways, that was my week.  Pretty good, pretty exciting! I'll try to send pictures if I have time. OH! And in 3 weeks, I will be able to Skype you guys for 45 minutes!  I'm not sure what hour or how or whatever, but Skype! Yeah!

I love you guys more than movies,

Elder Biggs

_________________________________________

4/27/2015

Miracles DO happen!

Elder Rodrigues and I with Milton.  People in Brazil don’t 

smile for photos, but he’s actually super excited right here.

So this week we baptized again!  That old veteran Milton!  He was super excited to be baptized and everything went perfectly!  The whole Branch was there, it was super cool!  Ill attach a pic!

Other than the baptism, our week was pretty normal.  We were crushed when one of our investigators (who received an incredible answer to her prayers) cut us.  But I'll explain why and how.  After 3 or 4 visits, she was progressing SO fast that we asked President if we could baptize her on the spot.  He said no, but that was ok.  We had also taught one of her 9 siblings Carol (14 years old), who was the same, super good. Accepted baptism and everything.  Then one day we had FHE planned with them but she wasn’t home. Her neighbor informed us that one of her siblings was on a motorcycle and was hit by a drunk driver.  We asked which sibling and she said Carol.  She suffered two hits to she head and right now is in the same condition as Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry.  She’s been healing miraculously fast, but because of this, Jeane (our investigator) has been gone all day every day.  We finally caught up with her and she said that she didn’t want more RIGHT NOW, and that shell find us when she’s ready. But no one has ever done this, so we've essentially been cut.  We almost cried, it was so bad.  BUT! Good news followed!  Another investigator, Wedya, has been wanting to be baptized for months now, but cant because her boyfriend doesn’t want to get married.  But she finally said, "I need to be baptized, we will marry now or I will leave!"  He said yes! And they’re finally gonna be married and baptized!  After this our feelings about the week took a total 180!

This is the stake center in Fortaleza! 

THREE FRIGGAN STORIES!!!

Right now I'm writing this in Fortaleza, because tomorrow an Apostle will talk to the Fortaleza and Fortaleza East missions! I repeat, AN APOSTLE will talk to us Amanha! Elder Christopherson!  We're all crazy excited!

Anyways, aside from this, the Branch is starting to grow again, this new family that moved in is already helping incredibly, and I and Elder Rodrigues are still good friends.  I'm super scared that next week, one or both of us will be transferred.  But we'll see...

Elder Biggs

Semana Dos Santos

So this entire week has been a huge holiday leading up to Easter.  It's... very strange... This week was pretty hard to work because no one was home, and if they were, they were drunk.  But you, know, whatever!  There was a huge theatre production in the center of town Paixão de Cristo (basically the Easter Pagent) but it didn't start til 8:30 and we had a meeting, then had to be home.

E. Rodrigues

As for my companion, Elder Young and I were complete opposites. Elder Rodrigues and I, are practically the same person!  We talk, we joke, we laugh, we both work very hard, but we have fun while doing it.He's not very trunky but we always joke about that. He (unlike E Young) wants to go home how I want to go home, after the 2 years are up. We talk about home and family, but we stay focused.  But we call eachother trunky a lot, and sing different songs extremely loud at the same time.  At this point we are working as equals. I know the area better, and he's more experianced. But we've had to find tons of new people, that he practically knows as many people as I do.  He speaks no English, but that actually hasnt been a problem yet! Its only been 2 weeks, and i can already see my Portuguese improving mirculously!

Speaking of languages, I'm teaching English now every Tuesday at the church!  Its a great way to bring in new investigators and its cool to be the one teaching a language and not the other way around :P

Oh, and Mom, I don't know if you've seen, but a member from here, Tereza, posts pictures and videos on Facebook and tags me in them.  I think she has a video of me teaching, but i say hi to you <3

Conference was... good... i think... We watched it at the church and I was the AV guy basically.  So we had to be there an hour early, stay between, and an hour after, so practically no teaching. And we had a baptism fall this Saturday because her husband didnt want her to get baptized at the last minute, so conference was pretty frustraiting (especially becuase understanding was a pain in the butt). But President said I can downlaod conference on my flash drive and watch it this week :)

But! Things are good.  I'm definitly a lot more in the groove of things.  The branch isn't growing yet, but it is strengthening. Oh, and all the members love me. Makes me feel all special inside :D  I love you guys so much, and only 5 more weeks til mothers day!

Elder Biggs

something weird that boys here do, is walking around in girl's clothes with masks and bells while cracking whips.... I dont know why but these kids freak me out!

March in Trindade with a New Companion

March 2nd 2015  My Birthday Week

So my birthday was this week, and it was no different than any other day. I was going to make myself a milkshake, but here, fast Sunday starts after lunch on saturday and ends after church. But Friday was
super cool!
This Friday we planned a huge activity for the Branch, and Elder Young was having a hard time coming up with something. So I brought up an activity that Bishop Mabb had done with me at Scout Camp.  The activity involved blindfolding everyone and leading them to a course of strings that led in all different directions. One leading to the end.  This represented our life and when we took a wrong path, we were making mistakes.  We started upstairs of the church building and I was an angel (my tie around my head and a peice of tape over my tag that read "Elder Anjo") and i led them downstairs and they started.  Elder
young was already downstairs and would help people who were lost. This represented Scriptures, or Prophets or church or whatever.  Then once everyone made it we had a good devotional and ate lots of ice cream. So that was a good birthday present for me :)

We have a new Elder in our district from Tonga, and he is even newer than me! So I am not the newest anymore! SWEET!
Oh, and one other cool thing I discovered, Thursday was my 100th day of my mission! That was fast! And crazy long... Weird...

As far as Portuguese goes, lets just say I wrote grandma and Grandpa in Portuguese already, and this is harder.  I am not fluent yet, still got 13 days, but its definitly less of a problem.  Some days are better than others. Saturday my Portuguese was actually pretty bad, but yesterday was awesome! To be honest, the hardest part is hearing them.  Just like at home, I can't hear people too well. Language isn't the problem a lot of the time, just hearing.

Anyways, I'm doing pretty good! We've been teaching this kid Alex (18 years old) and hes extremely receptive. So he may be my first baptism this Saturday! We'll see! I love you guys so much! Thanks for the birthday wishes. Talk to you next week!

Elder Biggs

_______________________________

March 9th 2015  Week 16!!!

This week was fairly uneventful to be honest... Found a lot of new investigators, dropped a lot of old investigators (because they weren't progressing), GOT dropped by a couple investigators, and I made pizza!

As far as out of the usual... we had zone conference. Got a letter from Grandma and Grandpa, but not the one from Dad.  But this week we have Mission Conference, and I'll get it then.

I did learn a good deal about the Atonement and the Sacrament this week and what it really means to be cleansed through the Savior, as well as just how far the Atonement can stretch.

OH! I gave my first talk in Sacrament meeting... Wasn't bad, but wasn't good... Language wise, it was fine, but our sacrament meetings lack that spirit that church is supposed to have.  We had lots of meetings with the Branch and leaders in the branch on how to fix that.

But other than that, a pretty good week.  I did discover oatmeal and how its basically like little wheaties, and I eat a bunch of it everyday now.  Seriously, my favorite thing right is oatmeal! It's AWESOME!  But yeah... this week is sure to be more exciting as Mission Conference is on Thursday, so I promise next week will be more exciting!

Love you guys
Elder Biggs
________________________________

March 16th 2015  "Chasing Buses in Suits while Carrying Dinner" - A new song I'm working on

So this week has been fun! And long.

Me and E. Young leaving Trindade

Elder young is going home today and I will meet my new comp after.  I am staying in Trindade and will probably be here for the next 6 months (which is common apparently).  Yesterday after church Elder Young told one person that he was leaving and last night we had a "meeting" with this person at the church which ended up being a goodbye party for him. Its interesting to see how much the Branch really loves their Branch President.  Lots of tears were shed and even more photos taken. We gave everyone our FB info so they can tag us (their idea).

In other news, this week we had (half) mission conference in Juazeiro Da Norte (5 hour drive).  That was really fun and included designing flags and I totally designed ours!  Afterwards, my Zone had to leave and catch the bus heading back, but Elder Young and I missed it by 5 minutes.  So what did we do? We chased it down.  About a mile of sprinting in suits with our bags and I had dinner for the Zone.  We finally caught it at a stoplight and it took me almost the whole 5 hour drive to recover.

I figured out how to whistle finally! And am trying to learn how to whistle the Andy Griffith theme.  I only whistle though when Elder young isn’t around because it is super annoying still.

So that was my week.  Haven’t baptized anyone yet, but there is a family that has attended church a couple times, has a testimony, and want to be baptized.  But the parents aren’t married.  So... They either will get married and be baptized in about a month, or sleep in different house until they get married and be baptized this Sunday. They’re talking about it and we'll talk to them on Wednesday.

Thanks for all the emails and letters!  I love all you guys so much.

Have a good week

Elder Biggs

________________________________

March 23rd  Crazy Weird Week!

The area I have been serving in this week

Greetings from Fortaleza!  My Companion is Elder Kreling (Brazilian) and I'm a Zone Leader!!! And I'm only kinda kidding!

Me, E. Kreling, Micaele, and her brother Bruno

Ok. So, E Young and I arrived in Fortaleza on Tuesday to pick up my new comp so we could return to Trindade. But he wasnt there.  Apparently, President hadn't even done transfers yet. And instead of waiting around for a week, I worked with Elder Kreling for a whole week, who is a zone leader.  And the best part: I had no clothes or money. Thinking I'd spend about 2 hours in Fortaleza, I brought nothing but money enough to return.  So every night I washed all my clothes and just ate lunch and gross old bread.  And I'm leaving today. 

But I did read a scripture (in Mathew I think) when Jesus sends out the 12 for their missions and tells them not to bring money or "a second coat" and not worry about food, that if they relied on the Lord, all would be provided.  And since this talked EXACTLY about my current situation, I decided to follow it.  That night I was crazy hungry and had nothing to eat or buy food with and as we were walking through the rainy night, a member stopped us and invited us in, and fed us dinner.  It was the first time I had ever been fed dinner and I thought it was pretty cool.

A long day of walking in the sun, gratefully it poured on us!

Anyways, my Portuguese is almost, ALMOST "fluent."  Its good, but... you know... still not perfect.  Apparently about 80% of the areas are in Fortaleza, so I'll definitly be serving in the city eventually.  This area that I was in, Tamandaré, was kinda like the Mesa to Phoenix.  Little nicer, really good roads, had a whole stake.  Way different than the last 11 weeks.  E Kreling "worked" but only when it was convenient. When it rained, was too hot, or when we passed by the church, he wanted to stop.  So that was an interesting difference between Elder Young.

It's weird that while I was in Trindade, all I wanted to do was leave. But right now, I wanna go back crazy bad.  I'm going to meet my new comp, Elder Rodriguez, at the bus station in 2 hours and head back!

Oh, and I had my first baptism!!! A little 9 year old girl named Micaele (Me-Cai-Ellie) who totally reminded me of Ellie.  I invited her to be baptized on Tuesday (her Brother was baptized last week and was confirmed yesterday) and taught her and she chose me to baptize her!  Was definitly super cool!

Anyways, I'm glad to hear all the good news from home!  I always read all the letters before writing this, and I'm excited to hear from you guys next week.

Elder Biggs

_____________________________________

March 30th 2015  New Companion

Directly after my time on the computer last week (in the mission office) President called me into his office.  He had been doing interviews all day and said "Your Turn" (he is fluent in English, but the way he talks in English is kinda funny).  He didn't sit down, just closed the door and said, "Elder, I'm going to say this very directly. Elder Young didn't care about you.  he had lots of things in his head and unfortunately, you weren't really one of them.  But he did teach you -by example- how to work.  Your new companion has a very sweet heart, but is a little negotiable   Right now I trust you. I don’t trust you very much or very little.  I either trust you or I dont, and right now I trust you. And only you can change that.  Right now you are in test (he said 'in test') with this very difficult area and a companion who will rely on you."  He then told me that I'd have an interview with him later this week, and I left.

After this, I met Elder Rodrigues at the bus station, and we headed off to Trindade.  He is Brazilian, from Manaus, shorter than I am, has 1y8m on his mission and is pretty cool.  Elder young never talked to me or laughed at anything or made me laugh, we jst walked.  E Rodrigues and I talk, make jokes, buy ice cream every once in a while, and already are pretty good friends.  He is definitly more negotiable, but has a great love of President.

This is where we study like bosses! 

This week has been a complete flip on my role as a missionary here in Trindade.  Because he knows nothing about the area, I'm planning everything and leading everything, and talking to people.  Before I only followed, but now I HAVE to lead.  And it is definitely much better. Its WAY more frustrating when people say no, or don't want to improve their lives or families, and I'm totally feeling the weight of this branch.  Right now we dont have a president, but the secretary, Elibrauli, has totally taken the lead.  He' made the initiative to organize the leaders in the branch to visit less actives and partial member families which has helped a lot.  But this Branch is extremely fragile   We used to have 50-70 people attending church every week, this week was 30...  Right now we're at the point where it could completely fall apart in a day.  So right now we're trying to create a firm foundation for the Branch.

Today, I have been in the feild for 3 months, and it feels like its been 1,000 days, but not 3 months yet.  Weird.  But this week has passed by crazy fast, and I think that might be because Ive been taking initiative and leading.  I have been trying to work just as hard as Elder Young, and follow all the rules still.  Our numbers weren't great this week (granted we had 2 days less than usual) but still.  We decided on a small portion of Trindade to work in that is close to our house and the church. This way we can be doing more teaching and less walking.

My Portuguese has already improved a lot with E Rodrigues.  All the members yesterday at church told me that i seemed different.  One even asked me "What happened in Fortaleza?  You left last week and came back completely different." Even the kids and youth were telling me that my Portuguese sounded better.  But in my journal and even this email, I've thought "whats that word again?" or "How do you phrase that sentence?" It's fun!

Anyways, I love you guys very much!  We should be baptizing a woman and a 15 year old boy this Saturday after conference, so cross your fingers!  Oh, and only 6 more weeks until morhers day!

Elder Biggs

February Fun with parasites! 2015

This is what I see everyday.  Between the "nieghborhoods" here is just huge chunks of desert. And always people playing futbol.

2/2/2014

Hey, you know how you always said, "You know you're fluent when you think/dream in that language?" Well thats totally not true... Sorry... :)

This has been an interesting few weeks.  I'm still trying to adjust (although it is definitely coming along) and the language is still struggling.  Some days are better than others.  Right now I feel like if I was fluent, this whole thing would be WAY easier.  And I can't see how it wouldn't, so hopefully that happens fast.

It never ever rains here. only little sprinkles once every few weeks.  It did rain big for a couple minutes last week, but that was the most rain this place has seen in years.  My clothes are getting dirty fast. Thats fun. My shoes are holding out though, but Ive been told that won't last long.  All my shirts are 100% cotton which means they're thick and always wrinkly.  But no one cares here :)

As far as homesickness goes, its definitely a lot worse here than in the MTC. But its not as much as "I want to go home" but more of, "I want to see a movie/watch Phineas and Ferb/eat In-n-out/get Baskin Robbins...." Stuff like that.  Yesterday I wrote in my journal that I don't want to (And wont) go home early.  But I do want these 2 years to go by fast.  But then last night I had a dream that I feel like helped me. I dreamed that I had just gotten home and everything was good.  I went to look through my journal for old-times-sake and found that the entries stopped at Jan 18, 2015.  I then quickly tried to remember everything, anything from my mission after that, but couldn't   I was so devastated   I woke up this morning so grateful that my mission had still just started.

2/9/2015

The last 2 weeks have been pretty rough, and good at the same time.  I hit the 6 week mark yesterday, and I can definitly see time going faster.  I totally understand what dad meant when he said he hated his trainer's guts. I don't hate his guts everyday (some days I quite like them) but there are difinitly some days where his guts make me want to kill him or myself. One or the other :)

Today actually, we had a very good companionship inventory where he told me about his thoughts and told me a little more about Trinidade and this Branch. (he told me in English so I could understand him).  Apparently, this branch wasn't just just started like I thought, but has been around for 15 years.  Apparently a member moved here and started teaching people and having church meetings on his own.  Then he found the missionaries from a near town and had them baptize everyone.  Then Trinidade became an area and missionaries were baptizing tons of people. But an arguement inssued between this guy who had been teaching everyone and some other guy becuase the 1st guy had been wronged in some way, and it ended in a fist fight.  Right smack in the middle of sacrament meeting.  Anyways, since then Trinidade has been the worst area in Brazil.  Its been through 4-5 missions and hasn't retained a new member in at least 4 years.  And Elder Young is the Branch President.  So here I am, not understanding anything, thinking this "new area" is doing great, when in fact, its the exact opposite.

SO! My first thoughts on this were literally, "Oh boy, this is going to be fun!" (not sarcastically) Now that I know what is going on, I am actually really excited to help Elder Young is fixing this branch.  And I told him this and we're now on the same page.  And all this was just today but I can already feel a purpose to being here. Up until this point my purpose has been, 1) Follow Elder Young around all day while walking 5-10miles +/- and 2) bare my testimony in broken Portuguese every lesson.  So you can see why I might have been having kind of a hard time thus far. But how the next 6 weeks might be way way better :)

One thing I relized this week, is that missions are just like making movies. Seriously! You plan like crazy for something, then work crazy hard.  The plan almost always falls apart, and things never work out the way you want.  You're almost always disapointed. Also, when teaching lessons, 1) they need to be no longer than 15 minutes (mission rule) and 2) they need to be outragously simple, becuase the people here live very simple lives and don't have much capacity for new religious ideas.  So when you teach, you need to "trim the fat" off your lessons (Neal will understand that phrase). Its like in movies if you have a 5 minutes scene that all edited and done.  You try to make it 3 minutes, and when you do you find that the scene is way better.  Also after organizing big events and talking to people and directing people in movies, this is a lot easier for me. For example, we had our 2nd investigator fail the interveiw, making this the 6th week in a row not baptizing  Both of us were dissapointed, but Elder Young was devestated, while I was fine because I was already used to dissapointment. I duno, Its always cool to see how the lord has prepared me for my mission.

As for other stuff, Carnival was this weekend, and "Rio" does not show an accurate discription.  Carnival is a pit of iniquity and an awful thing.  The church has come out and told members to stay away from carnival no matter what.  And Trinidade is apparently the center of Carnval for Pernambuco for some reason.  So crazy busy, crazy loud, crazy bad.  It is kinda funny to see all the people passed out sleeping in funny ways on the sidewalks and streets the next morning though :)

Our Bathroom/shower

My Portuguese is getting better.  Last week I wrote that I had hit a tipping point with Portuguese. The 50/50 mark. That I no longer felt like I was trying to understand a language I didn't know, but that I was learning more about a language that I DID know.  And this week I feel like I can say "I know Portuguese. I'm not fluent yet, but I know it" Still, that is the hardest part for me.  Because of , how the Lord has prepared me, I feel like once I get this language down, everything will be crazy easy for me.  And Elder Young actully agreed with me.

Oh, I made Ice Cream, and its awesome! And I made a milkshake out of that Ice cream, and guess what, it was awesome! Also, because the Chocolate milk isnt very good, I actually found a temporary substitute. Yogurt. Like the kind that you drink.  It took a couple weeks to get used to it, but now I love it. Not as good as chocolate milk, but will suffice.

This is our bathroom.  Everyother week we dont have water, so showers consists of filling buckets with water in our reserve and dumping it on our heads! Its actually way nicer than I expected.

Anyways, Its always so great to hear from you guys, things are really strating to come along. Sorry for my bad grammar, I have to type really fast. I love you guys and I'll hear from you next week! Chão!

Elder Biggs 

2/16/2015

The most notable thing about this week has definitley got to be this Saturday.  I had been told by lots of missionaries not to ask for water unless you KNEW that they had the purified water jugs.  Because a lot of people here just use the water that has parasites and gross stuff in it.  Anyways, E Young doesn't do this, he just asks for water and doesn't look in it, and said that hes never gotten really sick from it.  ANYWAYS... Friday he drank some water that I saw was some little swimmy things in it and told him, but he drank it anyway.  Saturday we had Baptismal interveiws (1 fail and other pass, but we couldn't get her parents to sign on the dotted line so, still no baptisms) and Elder Young got SICK!  But being the big tough jock that he is, he tried to muscle through it.  At lunch he spent the whole thing in the bathroom (which gave me good practice with talking to people).  Then we headed home and were going to have a member drive us around town to make last minute invatations to church.  Then I started feeling a lot of pain in my stomach too and threw up a couple times.  But after about an hour I felt fine, so I mustve thrown it up, or maybe I just ate too much at almoço.  THEN when the member came by, E Young was in so much pain that he wasnt able to stand, as well as had a pretty good fever.  Pres Fusco told us that we needed to go to the hospital.  So the members that were going to take us visiting frantically got their beloved Branch President (seriously, they really like him, and me, its pretty cool) to the hospital.  When we made the 45 minute drive, Pres Fusco said he wanted me to get checked out too in case one or both of us had dengue, a very serious desiese that Americans get from mosquitos.  So they checked us both out (i felt fine) and put an IV in E Young and pumped some mysterious liquid in my hand that made me smell an indoor pool...  Anyways, after waiting until about 1 am they let us go home and we went to bed and started the next day at 6:30 am and started to work like always.

Elder Young is still pretty sick, but refuses to stop working.  We haven't been teaching nearly as much as we should but we are finding tons of families with 38 new investigators this week!

Dad, I'm glad you guilt triped me, because it taught me how to guilt trip couples into getting married and getting people to church! Thats fun :)

I don't think I told you guys yet, but I gave my first blessing on my second day in the field in Portuguese and have given probably 10-15 more since.  Pretty crazy!

Anyways, Elder Young and I are getting along pretty good.  Getting in the flow of things.  The hardest thing is still the language. Without a doubt, but even that is improving.  So we'll see.  I love the food at this point. Beans and Rice are my life, and it is good!

Alright! I love you guys! Thanks for the letters, they really do make my week!

Elder Biggs


2/23/201

This Tuesday we got a call from President Fusco to come to Fortaleza because Fortaleza has the best hospital in the area. So we made the 2 day trip to the coast and went to the hospital a couple times.  I was fine and never needed to do anything, so I just waited.  We went to the hospital on 2 different days and stayed in the mission office.  Pres Fusco told both of us to rest and sleep, pretty much all day... AWESOME! And... boring after the first hour or so... Also, there wasn't any food at the office so that was lame. Pres Fusco also told us to eat 2 bananas every day. Yuck!  Lunches were fun though. We went to this all-you-can-eat restaurant everyday, which was SUPER good!  Oh, and remember how I said that before I could eat 2 boxes of Mac and Cheese back to back, but because my metabolism was slowing down I had to wait for a couple minutes? Well my metabolism must've reared back up because I am starving ALL the time! Holy cow! I better be taller than dad after this or I'm gonna be ticked!

One thing that was cool is I got to see a lot of people from my first week in the field, as well as see how my Portuguese had progressed.  And it was very encouraging to see how before I could understand a few words here and there, and I could (after like 5 minutes) get my point accross, and now have fluent conversations with people! On Friday, I got to work with the assistants which was super fun. I definitley like big cities more than small towns.  Elder Jota Souza (one of the assistants) and I started talking about the Walking Dead and how awesome of a show it was! Then he said that I looked exactly like Carl. I told him that my cousin looks way more like Carl and that was the first time I had ever been told that. Anyways, super cool.

I've had a lot of time to study and decided to study the life of Jesus and how he taught people.  One perk of chilling in the mission office all day is you get to use the computers.  So I watched all the bible videos and also had been reading James E Talmage's "Jesus the Christ." I'm about halfway done with it. Pretty sweet.

Anyways, we headed home on Saturday and got back yesterday at 6, had time to teach 3 lessons, and eat some ice (because I don't have any more food, will buy some right after emailing).  So a pretty fun week, not a lot of work, but fun.  Thanks for all the emails and pictures. Did you get my pictures from last week? I'm not sure if they sent. Oh, and Dad, it is against the rules to recieve mail directly to our houses, it has to go through the mission.  Anyways, I love you guys, talk to you next week!

Elder Biggs

one of our investigators who commited to stop smoking

Elder Young

Extra Pics from the MTC:

This is my district from the MTC with our 2 instructors.  The guy on the left is Elder Wiltbank and was pretty much my best friend in the MTC, and Elder Downs (the guy looking off in some other direction in the middle) lives on Recker and Baseline! How bout that!? Oh and the super ginger in the back makes movies, so that was fun. 

Because normal pictures are for chumps!  This is the last day in the MTC with Elder Wedekind.  I remember the first 2 weeks we totally hated eachother, but now I totally hope we are companions again. Super cool!