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.