I have Country Crock...

Welcome to the office!

Good morning, Beneficia! View from apt window.

One more photo to send home!

Hey everybody!

Thanks for all the news and updates! I love the pictures! I always love getting pictures. It’s crazy to hear about all the things going on with Jason. I hope that everything turns out OK. Having 1400 people looking for jobs is probably an overload for Eugene. Congratulations on Alexander’s baptism!!! We were here for President’s granddaughter’s baptism, and it was crazy. Accountability starts early.

HOLY COW I AM IN THE OFFICE.

Thursday was transfer day, and Elders Coombs, Blackburn, and Colby took my bags for me as we walked 20 minutes over to the office. It’s crazy how close the office is to my old area. The bank we use is in my old area, too.

Elder Blackburn went to Barreiro and I came here, so Amadora went back from being two areas to just one, and Elder Coombs and Elder Colby are companions now.

You know what, I’ll kind of explain what it’s like being in the office before I explain everything about what has happened (a ton).

Being in the office is like going back to normal, everyday life, but still being a set-apart servant of the Lord. Especially as financial secretaries, we deal with money all day – not exactly a Gospel topic. We’re responsible for paying the bills, doing ALL the accounting, reimbursements, all the cell phones (like 65 of them), inspecting new houses, housing contracts, missionary supplies, etc. We do anything that has to do anything with money. And more.

It’s a really peculiar situation, though. From the vast majority of the missionaries, our duties aren’t really as understood as clearly as they should be. Some people think we are on-call taxi drivers. Some people think we are lazy because we don’t reimburse them for unapproved expenses. We get calls from missionaries all day (especially during lunch, dinner, and at night).

Our schedule is pretty tricky, too. Normally, studies are from 8:30 to 11:00, lunch is from 1:00 to 2:00, dinner is from 5:00 to 6:00, and our evening time is from 9:30 to 11:00 to plan and get ready for bed. But very often, we have tasks that HAVE to be done, so we don’t get studies, or we might not get lunch, or dinner might not happen, or we might get home late, or whatever. So, our schedule is what you might call a little more “real-world.” We plan to work in our proselyting area (Alcântara) after dinner, but often there is something we have to do. But we still teach English classes on Tuesdays and Fridays at 8:00 in the chapel in Lapa, and we still get lessons. Saturdays and Sundays are meant to be spent working in our area, but so far, we haven’t been able to do that aside from a lesson we had with an awesome investigator, Carla, who is marked for baptism.

On the other hand, being in the office is absolutely awesome. I don’t consider myself to be any less of a missionary. The life of a financial secretary is a lot like everyday life. It’s so easy to get distracted on the job I’m doing or whatever and completely forget about living the Gospel. It’s a fact of life. Forgetting is an easy thing to do. But I’m glad that I get to learn how to overcome that here, in Portugal, in the environment of missionary service. What I’ve learned so far, from Lesson 3 in PMG, is that faith, repentance, baptismal covenants, and the Holy Ghost are principles that we have to live our entire lives – they’re things we do – like the foundation upon which our obedience to the commandments rests. Having these principles in our lives requires, as well, the foundation of WHY. When we understand why we need to remember the Savior, we will have a lot less trouble actually doing it. The first principle of Lesson 3 is that “Through Christ we can be cleansed from sin.” We need to recognize that we have sin to be disposed at all to remember the Savior. That’s what I think is key to work on in everyday life, and I’m trying to keep desfubequizando.

Elder Croshaw is AWESOME. He is so unbelievably awesome. He’s from Logan, Utah, and he is so awesome. For anybody to whom this email may be forwarded that perhaps may know any of my friends from BYU, he is a lot like Taylor Cluff. He’s ridiculously smart, is ridiculously good at anything that he does, and is (in my opinion) an incredibly well-balanced personality of pragmatism, humor, and discipline, and is also really chill. I don’t want to jynx anything, but I love working with him. He studied medicine like crazy in high school (basically about as crazy as I studied physics in high school). He wants to be a plastic surgeon. He basically ran his family business back home of custom electronics (for home, car, office, etc.). Also, he’s cynical in a very practical way, not in a serious kind of paranoia or narcissism or whatever, but in a joking way. I guess it’s one way of dealing with working with a large amount of people (before and after the mission) who really have no idea what they are doing. “Don’t come to a battle of wits unarmed,” he often says. It’s hilarious.

So our house is right above the office on the 8th floor (7º andar). We live with the executive secretaries, Elder Prince and Elder Hobbs (FROM AMADORA), and with the assistants to president (AP’s), Elder Rindfleisch and Elder Paulson. IT IS SO AWESOME. Having a peer group of really, really, sharp people is something I really need, otherwise I go crazy. A general sense of humor that is not just slapstick or the “bigger and better” mentality is awesome. Elder Croshaw also said that with Elder Davis, a former AP, he had some “great conversations.” CONVERSATIONS. We have conversations here in the office, and it makes me so happy. I hate playing the games of making a point of being funny all the time or doing things bigger and better. I hate playing games. Competition is lame.

Anyway, I LOVE it in the office, and I’ve still got a ton to learn. I went driving for the first time Saturday night in a parking lot (huge rarity), and it wasn’t that bad. Elder Croshaw and I kind of broke it down into the principles and variables, so when I got behind the wheel, it already completely made sense.

Also, in our English Class, we teach a guy working on his doctorate in physics at the University of Lisbon, and it is AWESOME. His field is quantum physics. It’s cool.

I guess I should send this off.

I love you all so much – I wish I had more time to respond to everything you send individually.

Fica firme!

Élder Lobo

And I don't know what we're doing for P-day today, since we are no longer allowed to use cars for the trip (no more ridiculously awesome roadtrips, like the one I went on to Caldas da Rainha with Elder Wray, whom I am replacing).

Até já.