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]