Tasty Pastry

Elder Lobo and associates

The Alfama district

The best Pasta salad I have ever had!

Heeeeeey EVERYONE!

Thanks for the emails and the encouragement.

While I was writing last week’s whiny, annoying letter, I knew it was stupid that I couldn’t move beyond the mountain of little things and just get on with it. It made me remember what my linear algebra teacher always talked about while answering questions in class – avoiding myopia. But while writing it, I knew I had to get it out. The next day, I went on a new search for what I was missing – what was keeping me working instead of serving. I had really been just working in the office, and office work is not exactly the most fulfilling in and of itself.

The next morning (Thursday) I read Mosiah 2:17, again, for the millionth time since getting into the office - I wasn’t getting it before. But it finally made sense. I wanted to be serving God by serving my fellow Portuguese man, not the people around me. But it finally clicked. I finally realized that I wanted to serve God, and that I would have to just suck it up and charitably do the work of the office for the missionaries without putting them on the same level as the things they ask us to do. It also made me realize I would have to put aside all the faults of my fellow missionaries that the office had significantly magnified. After losing “respect” for many of the zone leaders and others in the mission, I realized I should replace the worldly respect with Christ-like love for them as fellow children of God.

That day, we went to Loja do Cidadão to do drivers licenses for Elder Croshaw and Elder Parker, and while there we caught a few glances of the whitewater kayaking and gymnastics from the Olympics. There was a guy next to us who asked us in a ridiculously awesome South African accent if we were the Mormon missionaries. We started talking to him about the mission and why we were getting drivers licenses and etc., and we asked him if he had ever talked to the missionaries. He said he had them in his house about 10 years ago, and they gave him the Book of Mormon. He had read parts of it and thought it was really interesting, but never did anything beyond that. He had incredible questions – not necessarily questions of the soul, but questions like, “so what do Latter-Day Saints get from the Book of Mormon? What is its message for the everyday life?” etc. The conversation gradually started moving away, and he wasn’t interested in talking much more about it, but we found out that he was an economist from South Africa. I talked to him about a few different economic principles that seem to be more than just philosophies, like making a comparison to Law of the Harvest or how intrinsic ethics (Light of Christ) really relate to true principles that show up everywhere else in economics. We talked about the differences between Europe and China – it was cool. He got a card and a few misconceptions resolved. We’re not (#1) crazy and not (#2) stupid either just because we can’t speak Portuguese very well. Good testifying.

So the next day, I decided to read the Beware of Pride talk. And I figured out exactly what my problem has been.

Pride.

It is so obvious that my problem has been pride. However, it was hard at the time to acknowledge that I was being prideful while knowing I was telling the truth, even though it was whiny. It's giving value to things that deserve less and not giving value to what matters.

“The central feature of pride is enmity.”

“Pride is the universal sin.”

If there is ever anything wrong that we are doing, there is always an amount of pride involved.

I would go through and quote a ton of the talk, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I think the talk speaks for itself.

Nobody ever talks about pride (except in scriptures and talks) because it seems to be so sensitive and talking about it will make you look like you think you’re so humble or whatever.

I don’t think we think enough about pride. It seems to me that the best way to avoid sinning is to fight personal pride all the time. Pride is the source of the problem. Fight the sickness, not the symptoms. You can’t cure cancer by treating death.

It seems like the opposite of pride is charity.

Helaman 12:4-8 – We’re nothing.
2 Nephi 2:25 – Then why does this whole struggle matter?
John 15:9-11 – How do we do that?
1 Peter 4:8 – Why does love matter?
Alma 34:29 – Why does charity matter if we are nothing anyway?

P-Day last week was awesome! We went to the Alfama District on those electric trolley things (called eléctricos). We saw the Panteão Nacional, another supposed site of the remains of Vasco da Gama. I got some cool pictures.

I saw the lunar eclipse!!!

Out of time….

ABRAÇOS A TODOS

Let me know if Portugal gets close to getting a medal.

ELDER LOBO