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HEY EVERYBODY
I don’t have much time today at all. Since 9 AM this morning, we’ve been helping out with the giant group of 14 new missionaries. We went to the airport, drove them back to the office, got pizza, hung around with them, and we just got back from taking them to the mission home. It’s now 4:18 and we have a dinner/goingawayparty for Elder Croshaw at 5:00.
It’s been crazy. Elder Croshaw is going to Cacém to be district leader, if I haven’t already mentioned that. It’s been a really good three transfers with him. It’s been really hard in the office for me with all the time sitting around and not really doing anything that captures my attention. But it’s been good, and he’s been a great friend to talk to this whole time. He’s the first companion I’ve really been able to get to know (since I was only with the others for six weeks at a time).
Elder Wardenburg, from my MTC group is coming in to be the new financial secretary. I had mixed feelings about him coming in. President told me in my interview on Monday that he was bringing him in because he hurt his ankle and it isn’t getting better. It kinda worries me because Elder Wardenburg has never given me the impression of being a very… focused missionary. But I’m sure we’ll do great. Being in the office has a very different dynamic than the MTC and the field, especially since we’re practically a quadruple here in the office because we spend so much time together. It’ll be good.
As for happenings, Elder Croshaw and I redid the computers at the mission home with the software provided by the church. So we ended up hanging out with President talking about all sorts of things while we installed all the stuff. We spent a while with Sister Terry teaching her how to use Microsoft Office 2007. It reminded me so much of doing computer stuff at home. Saturday, we went to another ward’s baptism of a Brazilian kid of about 16 years. It was really cool. I hope he stays strong. We had family night with Familia Teixeira, and we talked about Thanksgiving. We did that “pass the bowl around and say what you’re thankful for” game with them, and it was amazing. I really needed that – I feel like my “attitude of gratitude” really needs some work. With all the giant changes in life over the last year or so, I feel like a lot of the characteristics about me that I felt good about had fallen through the cracks. A lot of my gratitude and optimism has taken a big hit, not just because I got out of the habit, but because I started thinking too much about it all. I do that a lot. I don’t know what to do about the whole thinking too much that I seem to do.
We have an appointment to teach Deco’s wife tonight!!!
I’m out of time – P-day flew by.
FIQUEM BEM!
Elder Lobo

The Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past

I thought it would be fun to share memories of past Thanksgivings.... Feel free to go back in time however near or far you like, include experiences with the Murray family or your in-laws or your own family. I'll start with my top two silly memories:

1) One year in MN, I was given the task of drying the lettuce for our green salad. No problem, should be easy enough. Well, the pre-salad spinner method of drying lettuce in the Lobo household was to get a big dish towel, put the wet lettuce in the middle, close it up, go outside, and twirl the bundle around as fast as you can. The centrifugal force whisks away the water, and you are left with nice dry lettuce. Well, that's the plan anyway. Insert one very old and decrepit dishtowel into the story, and you have one very embarrassed girl, and lettuce strewn across the frozen, snowy Minnesota landscape. I went out and started swinging the dishtowel around, and ..... RIP! The old towel gave way and ripped open, and our salad was all across the front yard. Bits of it were even hanging in the leafless front bushes. I remember standing in the yard, cold without my jacket, staring blankly at the now inedible Thanksgiving salad, wondering how in the world I would explain this one to my mom. Nevermind the LDS missionaries who were there to share Thanksgiving, now salad-free, with our family. I now own a salad spinner, and this will never happen on my watch again. (hahahahahahaha)

2) I also remember the year we were working on preparing our Thanksgiving food when the power went out. That meant no dishwasher or microwave or access to the fridge. Luckily for us, our stove was gas and could be ignited with a match if necessary. Also lucky for us, it was (as usual) freezing cold outside, and we had an unheated screened porch that always doubled as a giant walk-in cooler for Thanksgiving. That was an interesting year....I remember it was a little dark. :) But fun.

Now it's your turn (YUP, you too mom!) to share your Thanksgiving stories. Hope everyone has a fun and safe Thanksgiving this year....I wish we could all get together!

Thanksgiving Dinner on Tuesday at President's House!

After the zone training about exercise

The transfer board right before I came into the mission

HEY EVERYBODY!
Quick things before I actually start writing:
I can only receive emails from direct family members (this includes cousins!!! Woo!).
Christmas stuff… I don’t really need anything. I broke my Sonicare toothbrush (I soaked it bleach water every once in a while, but I put way too much in one time and it ate through the button…) but all the heads are still good. I really want to get stuff for a few families here, though. I really want some help getting something incredible for Familia Rau and Familia Teixeira.
Familia Rau is amazing. Irmão (Brother) Werner Rau is in the bishopric, and his wife is inactive (but she finally sat in on family night with us this last Monday!!!! First time since I’ve been here!). They have five kids: Werner Jorge (like “Verner”), Wania (like “Vania”) (25ish, spent a little time in Utah for school), Wivian (like “Vivian”, 21, speaks great English and is a really level-headed, practical, helpful person), Willian (like “Willian”, 17, loves soccer and the computer), and Wendy (like “Wendy”, 15, kinda shy but is absolutely hilarious because of her interests… but she really likes music).
Familia Teixeira as Irmã (Sister) Ana Teixeira, a single mother in her late 40’s. She has three boys that live with her. Francisco (17) is a total troublemaker, but he can still be a good guy when he tries. André is 15, has some rough friends but still really tries to do the right thing. João is 13 and is pretty small for his age, but he’s amazing. He’s really sincere and kind, but Francisco picks on him a lot. He loves soccer to DEATH. He plays in the Sporting club, even though he’s hardcore Benfica. If anybody in this family deserves an amazing Christmas gift, it’s Irmã Teixeira.
Think of some ideas and ask me in next week’s emails about which ideas would be good. They deserve an awesome Christmas.
As for happenings, most of the work this week has been pretty typical. Except, the AP’s finally moved out.
I want to explain this a little bit. For anybody who has been through the MTC, you know that when you pack in tons of people of the same age and together and then assign one of them to lead them, it can get pretty out of hand. Either the people just go crazy disobedient or the leaders go crazy unrighteous dominion, etc. Unfortunately, there was a huge perception on our part of the AP’s doing a lot of disrespectful bossing around – in the apartment and in the office. Instead of asking how we’re doing or what’s going on, they just asked for this or that phone number or for us to drop everything and do something that didn’t need to be done right then. (I don’t want to make them sound horrible, but that’s the basic idea.). It’s been really, really sad to watch Elder Stott follow in Elder Paulson’s footsteps.
Because of all this, I’ve been learning a lot about how leadership isn’t about being responsible for other people. It’s not about forcing things to get done just so you can have your way. It’s about being somebody worth looking up to so that other people willingly follow the true principles you try to represent, thus accomplishing the purposes of those principles. It’s also been so sad to see people use the excuse of “optimism” to try to excuse the bad consequences of their bad actions.
Oh well. There are a lot of other people in this mission worth looking up to, and it’s amazing to see how big of an impact they have by doing so little more than just taking care of themselves and being generous to the people “below” them.
Peer leadership.
So Tuesday came around: TRANSFER MEETING. We went and got Subway, and came back to have Elder Croshaw say the Subway prayer. It sounds ridiculous, but it means he is leaving for sure. He’s going to go be a district leader in Cacém (He’ll get to do divisions in AMADORA!). With all of the happenings with the AP’s, he and I have talked a lot about the leaders in our lives and how they did what they did. Leadership isn’t about making things happen. It’s about serving the people so well as to take away any excuse they would have to make good choices.
Elder Barrett is coming in from the Azores to be my new companion here in the office. He has been in the mission as long as Elder Croshaw – I remember Elder Barrett from my first transfer when he was in Mem Martins – west of Cacém, which is also west of Amadora. He’s from Bellvue, Washington, and he is SO AmAZING. It’s really, really weird though. He’s in his 9th transfer, meaning that by the time he leaves the office, he’ll only have four transfers left in the mission.
Overall, though, this week has been full of ups and downs, confusions and realizations but it balances itself out. I really enjoy all your emails and I wish I had time to send direct replies and even more pictures, but it’s just how it goes.
I love you guys, and I hope everything works out well.
Até breve,
Elder Lobo
PS: how can I make rice less sticky? (I am the Rice Whisperer, after all)
1 Timothy 1:15 – This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Castanhas! (roasted chestnuts! ate some yesterday!)

Elders in Action!
At Chilis. (they have Chilis in Portugal?? Gringo! And I can only imagine "The Office" references flying around...)

Hey everybody.
Thanks for all the updates.
I got a letter from Kevin on Monday, and it was crazy (crazy awesome). Time actually does move everywhere in the world (even though it is relative). Life does go on. It really does.
So you’re all sick, huh? Maybe you got it from me. We were all pretty sick over here a few weeks ago (and President still sounds sick). If you want some crazy good soup recipes, try to find some Portuguese soups online. It’s all they eat here (even during the summer!!!)
About getting a flu shot: If I wanted to get a flu shot (which don’t really exist here anyway), I would either have to go to the hospital and wait in line all night (we had a member who was having heart troubles who spent the whole night waiting just to get into the emergency room). Do you remember when I fell down the stairs and went to the emergency room but ended up just leaving?
People just don’t get the flu here. They don’t even know what it is.
Anyway, as for updates on my side over here...
In case I haven’t mentioned it already, I’ve been teaching Portuguese classes to eight people for the last three weeks, and it’s been really fun. An American member who is taking classes at MIT Portugal (which is basically just the Portuguese government paying to have students study in Portugal) invited a bunch of people to learn Portuguese with him since we were already teaching him some stuff during English classes.
The more I teach, whether Portuguese, English, or the Gospel, the more I find that I don’t know. There’s a lot of knowledge that we as human beings act on, but I don’t think we always understand what we’re doing. My problem, though, is that I have to understand what I’m doing. I don’t know if it’s the same with all people. It’s hard to try to teach anything to somebody if I am certain that I don’t completely understand it. Either way, it’s up to them whether they apply what they learn or not.
As far as the missionary work goes, we’ve been working a ton with inactive members. We haven’t been very successful finding people using what I would call “random” techniques (knocking, street contacts). We’ve been finding a lot of people who really want to come back. We’ve been working with Familia Rodrigues, and since starting working with them two weeks ago, we’ve been over three times, given blessings to both of their kids, and worked really hard to have members involved in getting them back to church. In the end, it’s up to them, but it’s totally worth it. Getting two people back keeping their baptismal covenants is just as important as getting two new people to make baptismal covenants. The wards here need a lot of strengthening, too, and we only have four active, sealed families in our ward. The rest are single members.
Deco’s wife and daughter finally made it here to Portugal, and we’re going over tonight to help Deco help his wife (and himself) back to church. There are a lot of people who know what they need to do but just need some support to finally go do it.
Preach My Gospel talks a lot about how the Gospel blesses families. But in all reality, the Gospel blesses families so that families can bless the individuals so that they can strengthen their own families. It’s part of never being left alone for you to fend for yourself. It’s a continual process.
Elder Croshaw and I, during dinner last Friday at a KFC in Colombo (celebrating finding a new dryer because our old one died and we had been unsuccessfully air drying clothes for two weeks), had an amazing conversation about gypsies. In this analysis, we talked about the fundamental units, and how the fundamental unit of a group produces effects directly corresponding to the nature of the fundamental unit.
If you look at different societies, they all have different fundamental units. In the US, that fundamental unit is the individual. The individual makes free-market economics possible, which makes the USA possible. The individual rights to choice are protected so that individual choices and individual consequences are directly correlated to each other and are fair. This makes people responsible for themselves.
You go over here to Europe, and the fundamental unit is not considered to be the individual, but the country. You have to obey the laws and contribute to the country to receive the benefits provided by the country. This makes you responsible for everybody else around you, and everybody else around you is also responsible for you. Responsibility is placed in the hands of people who don’t receive the consequences.
Then you have the gypsies.
The fundamental unit is the community, and it’s volatile. It’s every man for himself, but they are very loyal to each other because they need each other to stay protected.
But then, in the church, we know that the fundamental unit is the family and that individuals are incomplete without it. The family provides a place where individuals can make their own decisions, being responsible for themselves. It’s a place where they can work together for their combined good, which is greater than the sum of the parts. Family members need each other. It’s a unit that combines the essential characteristics that no other organization in the world can provide. No church, nor government, nor club, nor team can do for their members what the family can. And the family can’t do anything worthwhile without the Gospel.
I’m out of time.
Obrigado por tudo o que vocês fazem!
Amo-vos!
Elder Lobo


The pictures are from Chilis a few weeks ago and from a project we're doing for the Spain MTC - they want pictures of missionary work. Elder Hobbs snapped that one.

Haberdashery

Hey Everybody,

Thanks for all the updates.

It sounds like the election was pretty decisive. It’s funny to think about how much I got sucked into trying to figure it all out before I left. I still think that it’s all a matter of choosing the lesser of two or more evils. But either way, politics is politics, and I’m just glad to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God, like Elder Uchtdorf said (I think it was him… at Stake Conference at Westview. OH YEAH. What elementary school does Alexander go to? Oh, and by the way, Elder Gerald Caussé, who spoke in conference, is coming in December. We made the payment for his flights to and from the Azores.). I wish I could sit everybody down that won an election and read D&C 121:39 with them.

I’m glad to hear Jason’s job is going well. I wonder what he does that is so super-duper top secret that he can’t talk about it. Speaking of which, I saw advertised a couple new Intel processors, and it blew my mind. The Intel Atom? The Centrino 2? Crazy.

Anyway, last P-Day, we went down to Lisbon and then up to Telheiras to eat at a Chilis that opened up just over a month ago. The story about that is really funny, because there was a missionary who had a bunch of taco bell wrappers sent into him and ended up tricking the assistants into thinking there was a Taco Bell in Colombo. So when we said we were going to Chilis, they were totally convinced that it didn’t exist… so we decided to let them think what they want.

We finished up a zone conference across the river on Halloween. It’s getting pretty routine. I have a hard time getting stressed about most of the things we do now.

Saturday, we put together a big map to pass all the members in our area, and we went Saturday and Sunday passing members and doing contacts all day. It was really cool. We ended up fasting after church, so we didn’t go back until after 7 hours of being out. It was pretty cool.

Then Monday I went on a division with Elder Christensen (who has an Aunt and Uncle right by our stake center, but he’s the only member in his family) in Pontinha, which is basically right up the street from Benfica. To put it into perspective, it’s like going on a division from Tanasbourne to Westview (and Amadora would be… Streets of Tanasbourne.) It was really cool. We spent a lot of time with less-active members, taught a first lesson to a 25-year-old guy, and did a family night for a bunch of Brazilians.

The morning of the end of that division (Tuesday morning), when I got out of bed, I had one of those “stood up too fast” moments and my consciousness went away for about 5 seconds, like normal, and was fine (and still am, don’t worry). But immediately after coming back to reality, I realized that I was in the middle of a weirdo house, sleeping in a weirdo bed, with nobody else in the house but this weirdo guy (I say weirdo just to establish parallelism, he’s so cool. I love Elder Christensen.), wearing weirdo clothes. It was weird. It was like I was just thrown back into being alive again. Everything, for a little while, was new. So I came back from the division like I had just woken up from a dream. Everything doesn’t seem to be as real as I thought it was before. It’s funny, though. It’s funny to think and remember that this world is not the “real deal” – eternal life is the real deal. It’s easier to remember the real deal that you can’t see when you remember that the world you can see isn’t all it hypes itself up to be.

The pictures of are us being crazy on Halloween and of when Elder Hobbs caught me “moleskinning by the fire”. Just for the record, my PJ’s are not purple – it was his camera. I was wearing green and black. For the record.

After the time change, it got drastically colder. I’ve started wearing a sweater.

Life goes on.

LOVE TO ALL.

Elder Lobo