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