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