Sorry, no pictures this time!

HELLO FAMILY

Thanks for the emails and the updates! I say it probably every time, but repetition is OK!

I am typing this email on a computer in the middle of Almada, right by our house. I hope everybody has taken the pleasure of looking at Almada on Google Earth. The area is small, and I LOVE this place. If I had to choose someplace to live in Lisbon, so far it would be Almada. It's really civilized, there aren't clothes hanging out of every single window. There are a lot of young people here. The ward also has quite a bit of energy. It's about the same size as Ala 1 in Lisbon – 60ish people in church on Sunday.

Oh my goodness, if I could possibly express everything that I have experienced and felt this last week, it would be a miracle.

On transfer day, I went with Elder Corbett and Irmã Mack (Portuguese) and Irmã Lister (in her 2nd transfer) back to Almada via the Metro and then a boat and then the light rail. The elevator was out in our building that day, so we decided to leave my bags at the Irmãs' house. (We had better things to do than carry bags up 16 floors)

Anyway, we live on the highest floor in the tallest building in Almada in a house just like that of Amadora – bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen/living room. It's in much better condition, though. It even has double-paned windows in the living room.

Elder Corbett is awesome. He's from West Jordan and is an all-around great guy. He's really focused, which is an awesome blessing. He's had one transfer more than me, but graduated 2007. He's the first companion I've had to be younger than me, but I still have only been companions with people who have been in the mission longer. He's a lot of fun.

We've been working hard and well all week. There were two baptisms of investigators in our area, Paula and António, and it was really cool. Everything came together in the end, despite all the opposition of plans falling through or whatever. On Sunday, Elder Corbett ended up confirming Paula and I ended up confirming António, by request of the bishop. It was a cool experience.

EVERYBODY has been asking me if I'm Portuguese. “Elder Lobo??? És Português?” I've come up with some new things to respond with besides the standard “Não mordo” (I don't bite) etc. I've had some people guess where I'm from, and most people guess Spain or Porto (or someplace up north) or Brazil.

Anyway, onto what really matters.

After listening to Elder Bednar and learning from the way he taught, along with everything I went through (and put myself through) in the office, I can feel that the way I work with people has changed dramatically. Elder Bednar taught by having people ask questions, and we've tried the same thing with some investigators here, and for the first time they're really opening up and expressing some inner desires. We've had two investigators in the last week ask us hesitantly, “which church is true and how can I know?”

The way we find people has changed a lot, too. Instead of trying to just find people, I've tried to start finding the desire in people. It's not hard to find people (especially on Carnaval, which was yesterday), but finding desire in people to act is what really matters. I've really felt like the only worthwhile effort with missionary work is to try to find out what people desire and see what I can do to help them understand what their desire is (people often don't really know what they want) and how to get it. I have felt the Spirit in every contact we have done, even with one guy who was seriously a modern-day Korihor, because really our job is to just invite people to come unto Christ – the Spirit does the convincing, and the people start the following if they want to.

We've taught Valdino, Nelson, João, Edilson, and some other people, but mostly them. Valdino is a huge, cheery Brazilian guy, and he loves talking. We've been trying to help him get off the fence and start following the path he knows is good. Nelson has been a “fubeca” in recent history, and after talking to him about how to know which church is true, he seems to be sincerely concerned with the question. I don't know if he understands the importance of the question, but he is at least sincere in answering it. João is a pretty typical caboverdian guy – loves to have us over, doesn't pay too much attention, kinda keeps working on his commitments, but still has some trace of desire. We've been trying to help him recognize what his desire is and see if he can get it from the Gospel. We taught Edilson just by asking him the question, “Quem és?” (Who are you?) We talked about the Plan of Salvation and Jeremiah, how he was called to be a prophet even though he was just a kid at the time. He asked questions and was interested the whole time (we were there for a while). He's going back to Angola and will be one of the few people in that country who have a testimony of the Gospel. Now we just want to help him be converted enough to stay strong and happy.

We taught 8-11 year old primary on Sunday with the subject of the Priesthood. The teacher said that she hadn't prepared the lesson and hadn't read the book, so she wanted us to teach. So we used the TV as our big analogy (you wouldn't want to watch SpongeBob on the Disney Channel, you have to have it plugged in, and repairs – ordenances – have to be done by somebody in authority to fix it right). It was cool, and they seemed to get it. I love teaching Primary.

Overall, it's been a great week. District meeting seemed to go well, even though it was just us and the irmãs. The training was about the word “effective” and what it means – it's about results and how our actions correlate to the results we want. It was kinda rough, and I forgot to have Irmã Mack give the language lesson, so hopefully I'll do better next time. Next week is zone conference, and we're combined with another district right now, and since we have two district leaders for this district (waiting for Elder Neve to get back from medical leave) the other district leader is going to give the training and I won't have to worry about it for another two weeks!

I love Almada. It feels like everything I learned and built up in the office that couldn't really get used had Elder Bednar and everything I learned there as a giant capstone to get me moving here. I've got a long way to go still. It's pretty cool though to be able to see Alcântara and parts of Amadora from our house, along with the backside of Cristo Rei (unless the fog is crazy, then you can't even see the building across the street). Sometimes the fog makes it feel like we're floating in the clouds. It's pretty cool.

Carnaval was pretty tame, just in case you're wondering. We only had three water balloons thrown at us, and we laughed as we remembered Samuel the Lamanite.

The computer isn't letting me get pictures off my camera, and this is the only internet café in our area... so for now, I can't send pictures.

But I'm smiling either way.

I love you guys and hope everything goes well.

Elder Lobo

Hello All!

It looks like there's been some great events that I haven't kept up on. I'm happy for all of you. And I hope to see you soon.

With love,

Lisa

GOING TO ALMADA

Saturday yardwork with Elder Barrett -- you can't have a house without a yard otherwise you'll have to pay for therapy!

My Areas! Google view of Lisbon.

Driving to Miratejo one last time to pick up the van.
DEAR FAMILY.

Thanks for all the emails and pictures – you guys are the best.

Thanks to Brother Thelin for the package!!! I highly encourage this kind of behavior.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELODY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESTON!

We all seem to have birthdays jumbled on the same weeks.

ELDER CRITCHFIELD??? [A girl from our ward just announced her engagement to this elder!] We just shredded his call packet this morning (since it’s been a year)! All I really know about him is that he spent a ton of time tuning glasses with water to play Carol of the Bells on with his district for the Christmas video the assistants put together the Christmas before I came in the mission. It was absolutely incredible but made me wonder a little bit. I guess everybody learns in different ways.

We know who the new mission president is going to be!!! It’s going to be President Torgan from Brasilia, BRASIL. He and his wife both served missions in Brazil, and it’ll also be announced in the Church news this upcoming week.

I’m officially being transferred to Almada with Elder Corbett! Here’s the address for mail (you can always still send mail to the office and I'll get it every three weeks or so):
Rua Galileu Saúde Correira
Nº 3 10 A
2800 Almada

The house is seriously about 500 meters from the Cristo Rei statue. CRAZY.

Anyway, I want to devote the rest of this email to Sunday and Monday.

On Sunday, we had church, I gave a talk (my first one in church on my whole mission) about missionary work and how the Comforter can help you leave your comfort zone. I had just four minutes since the stake president was there to talk about our ward absorbing the Graça Branch, which had been unofficially meeting with one of the other two wards in Lisbon because it didn’t have enough active people. It was basically two small families and two other active individuals.

That night, we went with Tyler and Kristen (Tyler is studying here and Kristen, his wife, has been having a very hard time adjusting). We rode the train from Cais de Sodré in Lisbon to the station in Oeiras to hear Elder Bednar. It reminded me so much of when I rode the train from Midvale to hear conference in Salt Lake. It took about the same time to get there. We got there two hours early and it was completely packed. We were trying to fit members everywhere possible. I didn’t even get to go inside the chapel because it was basically impossible. There were about 1000 members at the chapel from as close by as Oeiras to as far away as the Algarve (with a 6-hour bus ride on Sundays). I spent the meeting standing in the entryway with all the other missionaries. The meeting was not Elder Bednar giving a talk. He did a question and answer session, and he along with his wife and Elder Kopiske of the 70 answered the questions.

Before I try to summarize, I have to mention that it was during this meeting that so much of what I have been going through in the past month or so has started to make sense. All the thoughts about the Fall and how to be autonomous in one’s decision making. I learned a ton about agency, and it seemed (to me, at least) to be a huge theme of what he talked about.

The question that really provoked everything to start clicking was when somebody asked “How did Judas’ necessary role retain his agency?” Obviously, Elder Bednar decided to teach the principle of agency instead of explaining something as unnecessarily complicated as that. I’ll try to summarize: Agency is one of the most misunderstood principles of the Gospel. Choosing is a part of agency, but that’s not what it is. Agency is more of the literal meaning (as used in Joseph Smith’s time) and has nothing to do with choosing. Agency is the ability to choose for whom you will be an agent. It’s not “do what you want.” It’s “choose to keep God’s commandments or not.” We have it to love and serve one another and to choose God (Moses 7:32-33). He used the example of the BYU Honor Code to illustrate the concept: One might ask, “Why do we have an honor code that obligates us to do these good things?” His response was, “When you sought admission, did you know there would be an honor code? Did you read and sign it? Before signing it, you were a free agent. Once you signed it, you became a representative, or agent, of this university. Your responsibility now is more important than what you want. Your option is gone.” Relating to covenants, “When you are baptized, you commit to always follow and keep His commandments. Once making this covenant, do you have the option of not paying your tithing? No. You pledged to keep the commandments. You’re not exercising your agency by not paying tithing. [You’ve already exercised your agency.] Agency is not an excuse for being disobedient. It’s for us to be obedient. There is nothing better that we can give to God except for our agency.”

What I learned was that agency is not autonomy. When you make a decision, you inevitably won’t be able to understand everything you will have to do. But in making any decision, you exercise your faith and hope in the promises so that your efforts will get you to where you want to go. If you want to chill in outer darkness, you shouldn’t be an agent of Heavenly Father. On the obvious contrary, if you want to live again with Him having eternal life, you have to be His agent, doing what he says regardless of the immediate consequence.

Another big realization for me was his answer to the request, “Could you talk about Jesus Christ?” He said to appreciate how individual His love is for each one of us. It’s not abstract or general. It’s individualized and specific. In 3 Nephi 11, he goes ONE BY ONE (sorry, can’t do bold) to let all 2500 people feel the marks on His body. All blessings, ordinances, etc. are done one by one. Is it possible that He just sacrificed himself and that fulfilled some abstract requirement for mercy and justice? Or did he see it all ONE BY ONE? That’s the principle. He saw you as an individual. He individually took upon himself YOUR pains, sins, and sufferings so that you could return. Only He could do that. “The uncertainties that you suffer and frustrations you experience – He suffered that and took it upon Himself for you.”

Find the six occurrences of “one by one” in the Book of Mormon.

I really liked when he spoke to the nonmembers in the chapel. “We invite you to hear the message, study it, and then put it to the test in prayer to know if these things are true. Please test this message.”

His purpose in the meeting was to communicate that you don’t need an apostle and a seventy to come answer your questions – all the answers came from the scriptures. We have to be self-sufficient in our testimony and in finding answers to our questions. Basically, you have to be the primary force in your spiritual progress – not your parents, not your friends, not your leaders, not your social environment, but YOU – and, best of all, with the Spirit, it’s entirely possible to have everything you need.

My goodness, I haven’t even made it to Monday yet.

So Monday, I helped secure a parking spot for the van outside (since it doesn’t fit in the garage downstairs). I greeted Elder Bednar at the curb (shaking his hand for the first of three times that day) with the other secretaries. He’s a little bit shorter than he seems on TV. He went in to be interviewed for TV while we went in and waited for the meeting to start with missionaries. For me, it was the best four hours of my mission so far.

I have to mention that he started off the meeting talking about the difference between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the cultural weirdness of the Church. Needless to say, that scored HUGE, HUGE bonus points with me.

He did it as a question and answer also. He explained the importance of retaining the important purpose of our existence, “to act and not be acted upon,” which fit even more with all I have been learning about agency and autonomy. He said, “Don’t write down everything we say. Write down the impressions of the Spirit. If all you get is what we say, then we failed and you weren’t listening.”

I asked him how we could apply the same Q&A process in a lesson if the people aren’t that willing to act. And he and Elder Kopiske explained that it’s all based on invitations for voluntary action – you just have to find what they want to act on. Elder Bednar explained to me that if people don’t respond to repeated invitations to act on something critical, then it’s their choice and you just have to leave them behind. It was such an honest, true answer to me – I’ve felt compelled to never give up on anybody, but truly the value of missionary work is not in pulling on the same people but finding those who pull themselves to Christ through you.

I’m way out of time. Needless to say, it was absolutely AMAZING. There was another session for Young Single Adults to which we took Nelson (coming back to church after years of inactivity following the rough return home to Cabo Verde from his mission). It was incredible.

For all of you members reading this, this is a direct quote from Elder Bednar to the members of Portugal: “Missionary work is not just what you do, it’s who you are!”

“What can we do better as missionaries?”
“Learn who you are, why you are here, and whom you are serving.”

Living the Gospel is easy – NOT living the Gospel is truly what’s hard.

Alma 23:5-6 “Knowledge of the Lord” is testimony. Conversion is to never fall away. Are we converted to the missionaries or to the Church? Or are we truly converted to the Lord?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is SO MUCH MORE than just the entity of the church. I hope we all can take more time to prayerfully study our scriptures and allow our honest desire to propel ourselves forward in the Gospel.

I love you all very much and hope you all do your best.

Elder Lobo

[PLEASE NOTE: if you read this post please leave a comment, even if just your first name. I wonder if anyone reads the posts! Kathy]

Iguaria

Portuguese doors are weird!

District Meeting

Bom dia, queridos!

Thanks for the emails and the updates, once again. You guys are troopers.

A lot of stuff has been happening these last few weeks. It’s comparable to the feeling of when the “early-bloomer” bully in kindergarten has just grabbed you by the ankles so he can pick you up and shake the lunch money out of your pockets. Transfers are next week, I’m 99.9999% sure I’m leaving, Elder Barrett will be the big bad financial secretary of the mission, investigators are progressing, Elder Bednar is coming (we just got a HUGE email from President about what we should and shouldn’t do with him here), some dear missionaries are about to finish their missions, leadership is changing, whatever. Either way, it’s the similar feeling I get during those two weeks before finals, when the water recedes prior to the tsunami.

Not a whole lot of huge reportable news happened this week. It was the week of birthdays, though. I never expected I would participate in celebrating a 27-year-old British woman’s birthday (Irmã West). She got a lot of post.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time in the office “testing” Elder Barrett. Basically, I have made him do everything and have spent a lot of time writing the training manual and reviewing his work. He’ll do great, I’m sure. I’ve spent a lot of time reading and pondering about things while I have this peaceful kind of employment. It’s really funny how simple our job is. I’ve worked a lot to cut the unnecessary busywork. There was a lot of work similar to what I did while cleaning up the poo flood (while walking forward, I would scrub in front of me, but when I got to the wall and turned around I would have to clean up my own footprints. Why not just walk backwards?).

We took President’s car back to the dealership to get serviced because the backdoor wasn’t latching. A MALA NÃO FECHA!

SATURDAY. Ariana would be so proud of me. We had a ward activity organized, set up, etc by the missionaries (party planning is part of Chapter 14 of Preach My Gospel). Anyway, it was called O CONCURSO DE SOBREMESAS. Basically a dessert party/contest. We watched Finding Happiness, a 5-minute missionary movie that is absolutely INCREDIBLE, and talked about it. What is the purpose of life? To have joy. But you don’t want Chinese store joy that breaks at the smallest bump or jiggle. You want quality with a guarantee. It’s like buying a car. You have to do a bunch of things to keep the warranty, but no matter what happens, if you do what you’re supposed to do, it’s covered by the warranty. THAT IS THE GOSPEL. Except it’s not 1 year/30,000 km. ANYWAY. For this activity, we decided we needed to ensure a good minimum level of entertainment. SO we decided to mix up the NUKER BROWNIE (that Ariana sent), with some slight modifications. We used milk instead of water and added chocolate chips. “VENHAM TODOS COMER O BOLO MAIS RÁPIDO DO MUNDO!” We had the microwave in there and nuked them on demand and then popped them onto the people’s plates. We put a little batter in plastic cups and they each took only 20 seconds to microwave. It was really good. People were BLOWN AWAY. Willian even started advertising for us calling it “O Bolo do Guinness”. People were pretty skeptical, but they changed their minds after they saw it pop out in its chocolatey goodness.

We had a really great lesson with Irisvaldo that I want to mention. We read the conference talk “The Way”, which is absolutely INCREDIBLE. If you could summarize every single church doctrine into one talk, it would be that one.

We did the rock/jello family night lesson with the Rau kids, since their parents were gone. It was really cool. It doesn’t matter how great and wonderful your house is if its foundation pops out of the jello cup when it gets squeezed.

Anyway, onto the news I know everybody is waiting for: TRANSFERS.
Yes, transfers are next Thursday.

Transfer meeting (Subway Tuesday) was yesterday, but it ended up not being Subway Tuesday. We went to the Subway in Chiado, like always, but found it closed less than two weeks ago and a chique café had taken its place. So we went to the one in Baixa, but found it had been taken over by the same café. ALL THE SUBWAYS CLOSED IN PORTUGAL. So we went and got sandwiches instead from Pans & Company, which came with some really good salads. But President wants to do CHILIS next transfer.

But I will likely be in ALMADA, which is situated across the river. It’s not final until next Monday (or Thursday morning if you’re Elder Barrett, who was told on transfer day while waiting in the office to go to the Algarve), so I’ll send you the address for all mail next week when I know for sure. It’s pretty funny. I’ll be able to see both of my previous areas from there, and all of my areas will have started with A’s. The only two left that start with A are Angra and Alvalade. Angra is in the AZORES (A again), so hopefully I can keep this up.

I’m really excited. The office has been a huge growing experience for me, as tough and exhausting as it has been sometimes. But I made it! I can’t believe it. If the last 8 transfers of my mission go as fast as the first 8, I won’t know what to do with myself when they throw me off the plane.

By the way, we get a new mission president in July.

I also want to clarify one thing: As far as plans go for when I get home, I feel that I need to try to get back right into the swing of things when I get home (no sitting around. Period.). This means that I’m going to try to get home in time for school. Extending is only an option for sister missionaries. On my deferment, I said that I would be back for Winter 2010, and that’s my plan. If the Lord is fine with that, then so am I. Moral of the story: I don’t want to worry about all of this right now, but this is the plan I have, I feel good about it, and I want to make it clear.

I love you all so much. I don’t feel like I’ve said that as much as I should’ve. As much as I may try to claim otherwise, there is nothing more valuable to me than you. As much as the world sucks me in sometimes, I always come back to you guys. There’s nothing the world could offer me that could take your place. Mom, as much as I always claimed to hate Josh Groban, I must confess that I really liked his “February Song,” and I still remember the words. Seeing that it actually is February, I would say it would be healthy to give it a good listen once or twice. I love you guys.

Just remember, it’s easy to slide a toothpick foundation into Jello but hard to drill anchor holes into a rock. Matthew 7:24-27. Investment in your eternal future has a good interest rate.

Elder Lobo

Matthias Erik Lobo 16 hours old!

Let That Be Enough

Dearest family,

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS JASON, DREW, AND MATTHIAS!

Thanks for all the updates and emails, once again. You’re the best.

I hope you enjoy the email I forwarded from President Terry. ELDER BEDNAR IS COMING.

I love this saying. I learned it from some English class students a few months ago, but I never wrote it down. “Agua mole em pedra dura, tanto bate até que fura.” Paciencia é um virtude, com certeza. Só se eu pudesse compreendê-lo...

Since I left my journal upstairs and Elder Barrett is already in the heat of writing a hilarious letter (he’s a very entertaining writer), I’m going to try to write this one freehand. With the keyboard…



The last few weeks have each been very different, and it seems like this week was a combination of all of them. It’s been slower as to the missionary work, but at the same time extremely thought provoking. It’s been a very pensive week for me. It all has ended up focusing on one gospel principle: the Fall.

Last P-Day, I spent hours finding the mold on all the ceilings and scrubbing it off. I’ve had to do that every few weeks here (it’s humid, no circulation, water condenses on the concrete walls, etc.). I scrubbed mold out of the grout (tile grout is a curse to all mankind). A few months ago, I was having a huge mental freakout because I was facing so many effects of living in a fallen world: misunderstanding, entropy, dishonesty, etc. Cleaning the mold that perpetually grows everywhere was a big reminder to me of the imperfect state I inhabit. Cleaning for me always is a time of great reflection. When I’m angry, I clean, and our house looks great this week.

But the real new perspective started coming to me once I was shocked repeatedly into looking outside of my own life because of the hardships of others.

Familia Teixeira (the single mother with three teenage boys) decided to move to a better house this last week (they still live in our area!). We offered to help move things, so on Friday we took the van to help them get the big things out. We got there at four in the afternoon and loaded stuff up and made a few trips back and forth. Their old house is on Rua Maria Pia, which is a long, narrow, busy street with a lot of bus and drug traffic. I drove the big, white utility van (so we could fit the washer and bookshelves). I had to parallel park it downhill on a sidewalk in the pouring rain with busses flying by only 6 inches from the car. No big deal, right? Right. They had a lot of stuff still left to do, so we offered to come back the next day. (Saturday, their last day to leave the house)

Saturday, we started teaching Carlos, the new investigator I talked about last week. We went over to their house only to have the strangest lesson I have ever had on the mission. We wanted to make Carlos feel comfortable since Vanusa is being very pushy to get him baptized. So we got to know them better than we do most people. It turns out that Carlos has had four near death experiences. And when I say “near death” I mean being nearly dead. The guy has screws in his spine.

It perpetuated a very difficult realization for me that I really have no idea what life is like. I have no idea what it’s like to get close to death. I’ve never broken a bone bigger than a metacarpal. I don’t know what it’s like to get my electricity cut off because I don’t make enough money. I have no clue what it’s like to overcome a hefty drug addiction. The list goes on and on. But more importantly, I really have no idea what it’s like to go through all those things and then choose to leave it all behind and put Christ first.

It’s amazing to me the progress that Carlos has made in such a short time, but I imagine that his life experiences have taught him a lot. It’s been hard for me to feel good about myself while acknowledging that I have so little life experience. I still make choices all the time, and I have a lot more that I will probably have to do before I learn better. Even by that time on Saturday, it was the start of a very humbling week for me.

Then we got to the Teixeira’s at 4 PM to help them move “the last bookshelf and the fridge”. It turned out that the help they had requested had decided not to show up, so it was just Elder Barrett and I with the van to move everything else that they had in the house by the end of the night. I never truly knew what kind of living conditions they lived in. I knew the house was small, but I had no idea what it was like. The tiles were cracking under their feet, paint was falling off the walls, etc. When we picked up the bookshelf from the back room of the house, a HUGE salamander (or something) ran out up the wall and into the ceiling. It was the size of a triple combination. I think I’ve lost the capability to be startled by anything, and I just stared at it in a daze. It was HUGE. Apparently, during the summer, they don’t even try to hide. Anyway. It started to pour like crazy, and over and over we worked to fit everything in the van. It got dark, traffic was getting worse, and Irmã Teixeira was definitely not going to finish the cleanup before the end of the day. The zone leaders were in a lesson, so I called the sisters, and they came over and did a great job cleaning up once we got everything out of the house and into the new one.

André, 16, was the only one there to help with the move, and I found out that he has already moved seven times. He seemed to be ignoring the situation, focusing on putting together the bunkbeds with us or the neighborhood or whatever.

We went to the Rau house and took apart a bunkbed for them to sleep on that night.

Another load in the rain.

More cleanup, and another load in the van.

I wish I could describe the scene in my mind. Our huge van parked inches from the windows of the houses on the tiny, wavy cobblestone sidewalk… the narrow street was loud and dark, lit only by a couple street lights, there were busses going by every five minutes. While navigating the tiny streets, there were times that I had to get close enough to cars that you couldn’t even fit your hand between our van and the cars on each side. I hit mirrors with a bus – no damage. I don’t think I’ve ever prayed more sincerely than that night. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so horribly grateful for everything I have than that night. I don’t think I can explain how unbelievably lonely I felt for this family… working so hard and receiving so little support for their needs… with the kids who have gone through so much but still don’t really understand it all. I am incapable of expressing how it felt. I don’t think our time could have been used any better than we did that night.

We finished at 9:40 PM, and Irmã Miquelina had made some soup for them, and they had been planning on eating all together at her house, but it was too late and raining too hard to be practical to go. So they went to their house and went to pick up the soup for them. We drove on the streets I had previously vowed to NEVER drive the van. I had to park it in the middle of the tiny street, on a corner up a hill with cars on both sides. Then I had to move it down the hill onto the busy road because somebody was coming. Then we ran in the rain with the soup in the bags and drove back to the house. I don’t think I’ve ever had a day like that in my life. I have never felt so outside of myself, like I was watching everything happen. I’ve never felt so low and so high at the same time.

“By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground – for thou shalt surely die – for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou wast, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Moses 4:25)

I have never felt that so powerfully, ever, in my whole life.

Like Preach My Gospel says, “They [Adam and Eve] could not know joy because they could not experience sorrow and pain.” It’s unfortunate that we have to pass through unbelievably hard times and make stupid mistakes to learn good from evil. But how unbelievably fortunate are we to have Jesus Christ, our Savior. Our Redeemer. We can learn from our trials and difficulties and come back clean with the experience and knowledge we gained. We won’t have to be in the presence of Heavenly Father by default just by being innocent. We can be in His presence because we are worthy of it.

The rest of the week was great, too.

Love,

Elder Lobo

New Member of the Family!

Jennifer was safely delivered by C-section of a fine baby son at about 8:22 this evening, Feb. 3rd. Mother and baby and father are all doing well. The baby is to be named Mathias Eric Lobo (I'm not sure of the first name spelling). He weighs 8 lbs 7 oz – a good size – and is 20 inches long. Jennifer said he has a good amount of light brown hair. Andrew was able to go into the nursery with him while they cleaned the baby up. Drew said the baby was crying heartily but stopped when Drew began to speak to him and looked intently into his eyes. A bonding moment! I have been taking care of Melody since yesterday. In the morning we will go to the hospital to meet the young man.

Liz Jefferies Mission Homecoming!

Young Elizabeth Jefferies, ninth child & daughter of Bruce & Jane, is coming home from Ohio March 20th. She will be speaking in church Sunday, March 22 at 9:00 a.m.

You are invited to come and be with us on that beautiful day!!!

The chapel is on 1300 East & 13400 S. in Draper There will be a gathering for everyone here at our home at the Jefferies' home (Bruce and Jane) at noon. Tell all the friends and cousins! We are so happy!!!