Rejoice, Lift up your heart, and Look

Ariana's Furniture and Design store
in Elder Lobo's area!Parque de Paz with investigators,
missionaries, and members.

Hey everybody!

Thanks for the emails and updates, once again! It's pretty hard to imagine what everything must be like. Everything seems like it's changed a lot over time.

This last week was incredible. We started teaching Silva (27, Caboverdian) who was a referral from the elders of Miratejo. He committed to three lessons per week for thirty minutes each. We taught him the first lesson on Thursday, gave him a Book of Mormon, then on Saturday when we taught the Plan of Salvation, we checked up to see how much he had read in those two days (usually, we assign reading, but we had told him to just start from the beginning). He had read all the way to 2 NEPHI 9. 82 pages. We were completely blown away. We taught the Plan of Salvation in a way we had never done it before, showing it as being the plan that we accepted, instead of teaching all the things that we claim happened or will happened. It was absolutely incredible.

On that same day, we had a total of four new investigators, the other three being Hudson (35ish, Brazilian), his wife, and his mother. We found him earlier in the week sitting on a bench. He had been having a really hard time with things and wasn't sure what he needed to do. When we started talking to him about what he thought about Jesus Christ, he said that he knew he was distanced and wanted to come back. He's been really excited, and both he and Silva have been interested enough to call US when necessary, instead of always waiting to be called.

Sunday came, and we were really excited to go to church with them. They wanted to go, we wanted them to be there so they could really start acting on their desire. As it got closer and closer to 9:30, we didn't see them coming. Silva ended up not waking up in time and Hudson didn't have money to pay for transport. They were all things we could've resolved beforehand, but we were certain they wouldn't have a problem – they hadn't had a problem keeping any of their commitments and are both pretty responsible. But yeah, it was really hard for me during sacrament meeting to think about anything else. I was pretty sad.

I think a lot. I started thinking about a question or doubt I had about something I read in Preach My Gospel, where it says in the first lesson that “God weeps with us when we suffer...” I didn't understand at all how it was possible for God to weep, being completely powerful and having complete understanding about everything. He gets it, right? He knows what's going on, right? Why would he have any reason to weep? I referred back to something I remembered reading in Moses 7, when Enoch has a vision of the angels of God and also of Satan and his angels, after which he asks the Lord how it's possible for Him to weep. I don't have the scriptures with me, but basically the Lord says, “Look at your brethren. I made them with my own hands and I gave them their knowledge and agency when I created them. I could destroy them with just a glance of my eye. I told them to love one another and choose to serve me. But they hate each other and are violent, so they're going to be miserable. 'Wherefore should not the heavens weep?' Why shouldn't the heavens weep???” God gave us our knowledge and our agency so that we could choose to serve him. When people don't choose God, there is nothing He will do about it, and He loves us so much that weeping is the only reasonable reaction.

This whole time I was trying to figure out a training for Monday, and I was going to talk about the importance of understanding, especially understanding our investigators and their needs (for example, how the Nephites understood the Law of Moses while the Israelites didn't). On Leonardo and Marina's fridge (members who were feeding us lunch), they had a fridge magnet that said, “Don't try to understand me, just love me.” I saw that and thought that the training was shafted, being false, and I would have to find something besides understanding to be the topic. But I thought about it, and I wanted to understand it, and I remembered another time when the Savior weeps.

I read 3 Nephi 17 in my talk when I left, and it's always been very special to me. I hadn't felt more love through the scriptures than from that chapter. I realized that God can even weep tears of joy because His children choose to follow Him, because he gives us everything and loves us enough to let us choose Him for ourselves.

Going back to the training. I witnessed an amazing scene of teaching by the Spirit on Monday. I had asked everybody to come with a favorite scripture and to be ready to explain what it took for them to understand that scripture. We went through and explained and identified that it takes situations when we APPLY, DESIRE, and SEEK HELP for us to understand something. Right then, I had an incredible realization of my favorite scripture, 1 Corinthians 13. I explained how I came to understand 1 Corinthians 13 from the experiences from the last few days and from earlier in my mission, when Miguel didn't want to go to church anymore and how it completely broke my heart for about 6 transfers. But that happened because I didn't understand that part in Moses 7, that because we love people, we will weep when they choose not to follow God, but there is nothing that we can do about it and that our love for them shouldn't stop. Just like in Jacob 5, when the Lord of the Vineyard weeps and asks himself several times, “What could I have done more for my vineyard?” We can have the same response as the servant: “Just wait a little longer.” If we truly love the people we serve, we will already be trying to do everything we can for them, but we will be patient enough to keep working always.

We have to love our investigators, not just try to play a game of understanding with them.

How many times has something horrible happened and we have said what Enoch said, “I will refuse to be comforted.” How many times have we let that happen to ourselves, even when the Lord is trying to tell us “Rejoice, lift up your heart, and look.” What did the Lord show Enoch when he told him to look? The Savior. We should do the same.

We had a day yesterday when nobody stopped to talk to us. Just one guy and he was a little crazy. But I understand a little bit better now enough to be disappointed in them but not in the truth.

I've learned a lot how honesty is the number one policy, and we can grow a lot when we let the truth speak for itself through us. We will see things more clearly, and others will have a better chance to understand what we're trying to say. When we understand the truth, we won't have to worry about how to slip it in or how to get somebody to listen. We will see the truth for what it is, not for what we hope it to be.

As we watch everything we have built on the foundation of the world get washed away, revealing that what little we have built on the foundation of the Savior always remains, honestly recognizing that it is only on Him that we can build a sound foundation, we will desire to build more on it and will find the peace and happiness which form the base of our “good” desires.

I have a sticker on the back of my tag that a member gave me in Lisbon that says “Consider yourself hugged.”

I'll put one on the end of this email.

Consider yourselves hugged.

Love,

Elder Lobo

Danny Jefferies got his mission call!!

Since I am not sure if Aunt Jane does the blog, I'll just post the info.

Danny has been called to the......

drumroll.....



SINGAPORE Mission. Wow! It includes Pakistan (excude India) Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia. He leaves July 1st. Go Danny!!

Yay for missionary work all over the world....the Lord loves His children everywhere!

Pede, e ser-lhe-á dada

Throwing a frisbee around with Elder Wilcox

Hey everybody,

It sounds like it was a pretty crazy week for everybody.

I have some quick stuff to get out of the way:

So this P-Day is a celebration of my 14 months on the mission (Mar 16), Elder Corbett's 15 months on the mission (Feb 5), my year in the country (Mar 19), my half birthday (Feb 27), and basically anything else we can think of. We're going to Parque da Paz like we did last week and are going to have a pretty sweet picnic with some other missionaries and members. Should be cool.

Last night I thought I had so much stuff to write about like they were big things that happened, but now that I think about it, it was just a lot of great little things.

I don't think I'll be able to write about everything in chronological order.

On Thursday we went to say goodbye to Edilson, who is going back to Angola. We've been working with him to help him strengthen his testimony and conversion, and during this visit, we still had no idea what we were going to teach him when we walked into the door. We talked to him about everything, he played some hilarious songs for us on the guitar that I want to learn eventually, and then I opened the Book of Mormon and looked down on the page to see Mosiah 2:17, and I realized at that moment that that was exactly what he needed. We talked about the importance of service, and it occurred to me how important it really is.

One question I've started asking investigators when introducing the Book of Mormon is “How do you know somebody loves you?” The bottom line that we always arrive at is that they do things for you to try to help you get what will make you happy, whether you realize it or not. It's been incredible to see how the love of Christ is exactly that, the Spirit of Revelation is exactly that, and that the Plan of Salvation is exactly that. God loves us so much that he brought forth the Book of Mormon.

The greatest commandment: Love God. The second: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Are they really different at all? “If ye have done it unto the least of these thy brethren ye have done it unto me” right? A great measure of our love for God is our service for our neighbor.

Friday we went with João Pedro, who lives with his grandmother who just got an emergency kidney transplant after waiting for 13 years. It was his first time going with the missionaries, and after our lesson with Ricardo (António's son) about the Book of Mormon, he asked us, “This is incredible! I feel so good!” “Imagine feeling like this every day, João.” This kid has been a big influence on the others in the ward, and we've been having problems with the young men in the ward (who are all 10-14, basically), and hopefully we can help João Pedro see the value of living the Gospel and influence the others in the ward. We went to a family night with Josiane (she lives alone) and João Pedro came with us. We did a scripture chase from scripture mastery scriptures from the Book of Mormon, and wow. Scripture mastery scriptures are awesome.

On Sunday, I confirmed Josiane in church, and it was an amazing experience. There have been so many times that I have just gone and done things that I had no idea I could do. Sometimes when we're at home, I wonder how in the world I'm going to do everything I know I have to do, but I leave all that stuff at home and watched myself do amazing things. I opened my mouth to do the confirmation and it was completely different. We've done contacts and said completely different things for each person. I've given blessings and had completely different things happen. The Spirit is absolutely amazing, and I am absolutely sure that the Comforter can make it possible for us to get far outside of our comfort zone. We just have to go and do.

So you remember the program that I mentioned last week? We've continued doing it for each member that wanted to listen, and it's been an absolutely incredible experience. We got a call Monday night from Rozendo saying that he went and did what we had planned to do and that his friend Eva wanted to have the lessons. We're going tonight. My whole mission, I've thought that the only way you can actually get references are when they come in the mail from the office (from contacts on the street made by other missionaries). Members didn't want to just “give names” of people, and this has helped them so much to love their friends enough to extend an invitation.

It's also been very revealing about a few members who seemed ultra active but who have been very against trying anything. “They're all communists and Jehovah's Witnesses.” “We've already talked to our neighbors. They don't want anything.” It's been really sad for me, and some members don't even listen when we tell them it's possible for God to place somebody in the grocery line for them or anything. But people just didn't want to act. There's a big difference between testimony and conversion.

While walking down the street a couple nights ago, I was talking to Elder Corbett about how sick I was of the old way of doing contacts, “Hi, we're missionaries... blahblah... we have a message we want to share with you... blah blah... have you ever heard of the book of mormon... blah blah blah.” You don't need to tell them that you have a message – tell them the message! There was nobody on the street, until we rounded a corner and there was a guy sitting on a bench. I started talking to him and somehow right away he said basically, “man I've really distanced myself from God and everything is going wrong. I don't know where a good church is around here and I really want to come back.” Seconds later somebody yelled from a car for him to come inside, and he wanted to meet with us the next yesterday at the bench. We exchanged numbers. Yesterday, I was on division with Elder Wilcox, and he called us (!!!!) to say that he wouldn't be able to make it that night but wanted to try for Thursday. If you are working by the Spirit, it doesn't matter where you are – you will find people.

It's been a great week, basically.

We talked with António Fragoso again last night (inactive ex-missionary) and it was amazing how a conversation Elder Wilcox and I were having just on the way was perfect for him. I asked Elder Wilcox what our purpose statement would be after the mission if our purpose on the mission that all our actions are tied to is “invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel... etc”. It's going to be the same!!! This life is too short to focus on anything besides that. It was a great realization to me, confirming some of my questioning of what in the world I'm going to do with the rest of my life, but why stop being a missionary ever?? There's nothing more important than coming unto Christ and helping others, whether it's at home, at work, or anywhere. It's really helped me discover and reconcile my true desires with the desires I think I have and the desires I think I'm supposed to have. Everything we do should be connected to our purpose.

I think if we all had an extra 5 minutes in the 24 hours of every day where we contemplated our current location in the Plan of Salvation, I think we would understand so much better our true desires and what we need to do here before time runs out so that we can get where we truly want to go.

Somebody told me to “love your mission no matter what” and I'm learning now that that's not a retrospective kind of love or some kind of perceived level of satisfaction at which to arrive. It's active and I have a lot to do.

I miss you guys a lot, but it's no big deal. We all have our work to do.

ELDERLOBO

sempre em frente

Parque das Nacoes

No need for cell phones

Going to Church

After the baptism of Josiane

Hey everybody,

Thanks for the emails and the pictures! Preston is crazy. I keep thinking that he's going to turn three pretty soon, when in all reality he turned three and then four ALREADY. There's a four year old in our ward, and it blows my mind to think that Preston is as old as him.

So as for novidades this week, I guess I'll start off by mentioning that we had zone conference, and it was my first time attending in the Miratejo chapel (instead of just hanging around and setting everything up). It was pretty weird. I saw the same trainings that the assistants did, plus a training by Elder Croshaw and Elder Florence. It was so good to see Elder Barrett and Elder Wardenburg. Apparently things have gotten crazy with a couple houses since I left, but they're handling it pretty well.

We had a street meeting (basically a bunch of missionaries doing contacts in the same place) in Cacilhas, and for the most part nothing really came from it, but we met a few people and got a couple references.

Afterwards, Elder Corbett and I did our weekly planning, and right from the beginning we started having a bunch of realizations. We drew out all of our investigators and the people they were linked to, then we realized that a lot of our investigators have nobody linked to them that we know. Then, we realized that the MEMBERS had nobody linked to them that we knew of.

It was amazing. It was absolutely incredible what happened. We remembered when Christ came to the Americas and let the multitude come see him one by one, until the entire multitude was converted and worshiped him. We decided we would have to do this too, working on the principle of one by one. In the end, we came up with a plan to go see all of the members individually who would willingly accept a visit. We planned to talk to them about the principle of “one by one” and then ask them if anybody came to mind during the conversation. We'd help them plan an action, (who, what, where, when, why, how), and then check up with them the day after they planned to do it and talk about the next move, what went well, what went not so well, etc. Basically, we're going to teach the members one by one how to help their friends, one by one.

Yesterday, we had our first visit with a member about this, and it was Irmã Lila. She said she had talked to people and didn't feel like she had the Spirit with her enough to talk about the Gospel to anybody, so we helped her individually understand the baptismal covenant better, reviewed the visit of Christ, and then asked her if anybody came into her mind while we had been talking. “HOW DID YOU KNOW?” It turns out she had a friend at work to whom she had given a Book of Mormon, and this friend had questions about Joseph Smith that Irmã Lila didn't know exactly how to answer. It stopped there almost two months ago. So we helped her plan to ask about how her friend liked the reading and what to do depending on her response. We practiced, and we left her with a note with all the who, what, where, when, why, how, with our follow-up time. It was absolutely amazing. And that's just one member.

Sunday was Josiane's baptism!!!!! Do you remember the Josiane I talked about almost a year ago? She has changed so much. She was very quiet, concerned, worried, and confused by a lot of things when I was teaching her. We had a lesson where I taught the basic idea of what happened with me the summer of 2007, how we have to have a true, eternal perspective to be able to understand what we learn. That was what was holding her back from being baptized, and when she bore testimony after her baptism, she talked about how that was what was missing from her life. Once she got that, it changed everything. She's so much happier, so much less worried about things, and knows where to go now. It was absolutely incredible. I've felt like my mission has had so many loose ends – people I met and have no idea what happened to them... and then this from my first few weeks in the country. Insane!

In our finding efforts, we have definitely been guided by the Spirit to a couple people. One night, we decided we were going to go knocking. We started walking, doing some contacts, then felt like it would be better to go down by the Cova da Piedade station for whatever reason. We knocked a couple buildings, nothing, then felt like we should knock the building of a former investigator. We knocked that door first, and it turned out to be and interested guy with questions. We're talking to him tomorrow.

Thanks for your prayers.

I want to talk about something I learned from my studies this morning. I've been studying Moses a little bit during these last few days. I absolutely LOVE the Book of Moses. I read chapters 4 and 5 today, and I was absolutely struck by Cain. He would ask, “Who is the Lord that I should know him?” You can't know the Lord is worth knowing until you get to know Him, and “how knoweth the man the master he hath not served...” etc. But Cain continued like this, and then Satan, of all people, commanded him to make an offering to the Lord. Satan told him to be obedient, more or less. So when Cain gave the sacrifice of his fields (he worked the fields), God didn't approve. Cain got angry. He was being obedient, right? He was keeping the commandment to sacrifice, right? But God didn't approve? The Lord told Cain that he needed to repent first. But Cain stayed angry, wanting his level of obedience to pass. The Lord cursed Cain as a just punishment, and set a mark on him so other people wouldn't kill him. It was such an amazing example to me of the importance of doing things for the right reasons, and the gravity of the first and greatest commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart... soul... etc.” But was Cain done for because he “loved Satan more than God”? I don't think so. If he were, I don't think the Lord would have prolonged his time on the earth, setting a mark on him “lest” anybody finding him should kill him. Working to love is definitely something you have to work for, and I can see through Cain that God knows we can overcome the ways that we love Satan more than God. We can act on faith to trust that the Lord is worth getting to know through serving him. We can act on faith to trust that we should love the Lord, even though we don't know Him as well as we might like.

The Book of Moses is SO COOL. It's so cool how clear the Gospel is when put in the context of the beginning of the world, before things like murder and other kinds of sins and confusions were introduced into the world. Enoch is the man.

The scriptures are incredible!

Be sure not to ask “Who is the Lord that I should know him?” Let's be like Nephi and say, basically, “I don't know the meaning of everything, but I know that God loves His children.” Or like Adam, when asked why he offered sacrifices responded, “I have no idea, except that God told me to.”

SIGAMOS EM FRENTE!

I love you guys.

Elder Lobo

Blog facelift

It had been mentioned that the background of this blog had become "boring".... Hope you like the new one. Looks Springy! :)

Found an SD Card reader in our house! Pictures!

Elder Lobo, Antonio, and Elder Corbett.

Our view from the 16th floor in Almada!

Sunset in Almada -- looking west naturally!
Hey everybody!

Thanks for all the emails and pictures. Last P-Day was designated as cleaning P-day, and today we're going with Edilson (who's going back to Angola in a week) to the Oceanário (the Aquarium). It's in Parque das Nações in Lisbon. It's one of the two things he wanted to see before he went back, and I hear it's awesome. I haven't seen an aquarium for a long time!!

Anyway.

Since last night, I've been trying to think how in the world I could write an email about this week. Some amazing things have happened, but also some not-so-amazing things, but it all adds up to a pretty great week.

Thursday was the Zone Leader & District Leader Council, and it was one of the best missionary meetings I've been to so far. It was in Benfica (I only made it a week without setting foot in the office again) and was just like a zone conference but with less people. We started out with a hymn, prayer, and then President Terry invited two people to give talks just like usual (one on Faith to Find and the other on True Conversion), and on the way up to Benfica (taking the Fertagus train from Corroios across the bridge to Sete Rios... Do you guys ever look up these places on Google Earth or anything?) I realized I had left my talks at home. I mentioned this to Elder Wilcox, who was my zone leader in Lisbon and now here in Almada, and he said to not worry about it because President never calls on district leaders to give talks at these things. So I was sitting there, not really worried about it, and then BAM I got called on to talk about Faith to Find (Elder Croshaw talked about True Conversion). It was pretty funny. Usually zone conferences and everything are done in English, but President started this one in Portuguese, so I did my talk in Portuguese, and for some reason the rest of the meeting was in English. It was good though. I just talked about what I felt on the subject, how we're not just looking for people or somebody who will listen, but we're looking for desire for the Gospel, and many people don't know that the good things they truly want can only be satisfied by the Gospel. For the rest of the meeting, I focused on learning the way Elder Bednar said so well, “If all you get is what I say, then I failed and you weren't listening.” I learned a lot this meeting. We had trainings by the assistants, and then President discussed with us some of the trends in the mission and our responsibilities as leaders. We talked about how easy it is to be motivated after zone conference or another meeting but then to also fall back just a week or so after. I loved the meeting and learned a lot... got to see Elder Hobbs (who is in the Algarve)... got to give Elder Wardenburg a hug. It was a great day. Haha.

Fast Forward to Saturday. I was on divison with Elder Bass (zone leader) in Miratejo. We taught a lesson to a recent convert and her two kids, and they really surprised me. We just talked about Heavenly Father and how the Gospel blesses families. David, 11, was really quiet, but when I shared the story of how I got off at the wrong stop after the first day of fourth grade [note: we had just moved to Oregon and were living in an apartment -- Christian insisted on riding the bus to the neighborhood where our house was under construction. I was there waiting but he got off too soon.] and was lost from my family and thought I would have to go door to door for food and sleep down by the stream behind our house, he really connected with that. He sat right over next to me and shared his Book of Mormon with me. It was really cool.

I want to interject here with something that I learned from the Book of Mormon this morning. It was in Alma where Ammon was teaching King Lamoni, I think, and when the one woman who believed snuck out and gathered everybody, everybody who “would listen” was converted. It's so obvious to me that when we really work on listening, we understand, and when we understand the Gospel, we will be empowered to make right choices.

We've been working on our contacts trying to figure out what people want, and one question that has worked miracles for us has been “What makes you smile?” I haven't really thought about it much myself, but I plan on it.

That Saturday night, after a crazy day with the Spirit, we got home to our apartment building, and in the entranceway there was a brazilian woman who asked us right as we opened the door, “Are you guys from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?” (In Portuguese, obviously) We responded that yes we were and immediately she started saying, to summarize, “I live in Portimão (in the Algarve about 2-3 hours south) and I went to church once there just out of curiosity. I read a bunch of a Book of Mormon that my friend showed me and I absolutely loved it. I felt something in my heart so strongly that I started to cry and I just know that book is amazing.” “Do you have your own copy?” “No” “We gave out our copies tonight, but we can run and get you one. DON'T GO ANYWHERE” So we ran up and got a copy, came back, and she mentioned “I remember reading in a part called Alma a part where he said we have to repent... have faith... and be baptized.” We started talking to her about everything, and she didn't really know about Joseph Smith or what the Book of Mormon really was, so we taught all that to her and asked her for her phone number or address or some way we could stay in contact, but she said her phone was broken and she would be getting a new number, and she had just moved to Portimão, so she didn't know her address for sure. So I wrote a message in her copy of the Book of Mormon and our number, the address of the chapel, the office number, the web site – everything I could think of. It turns out that she was waiting for a friend. She was going to stay in Almada with her (the friend) and then wanted to go to church with us the next day, but if she didn't show up she would have to go back to Portimão. We went up and got in contact with the elders of Portimão, and they said she had showed up once and then disappeared – they didn't have any contact information for her either. So we just hope that she acts on the Book of Mormon and gives us a call with her new number like she said she would.

If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. Of all the places to wait for somebody in Almada, why in our prédio?

Then everything that we talked about in zone conference started to come into effect.

Everybody remember when Christ was walking on the sea and told Peter to walk out to him? Everybody remember what happened? He started walking, and then “when he saw the wind boisterous” he began to fear and started to sink. Right when all this amazing stuff was happening, I looked around and at myself and was wondering how in the world I could keep up whatever it was that I had to do to keep everything going. I started to see how often appointments fall through and how many people just give us the hand on the street, and since about Sunday, it's ground to a halt. I felt kinda stupid after zone conference, especially after talking about all that, and doing it myself. The last couple days have involved a lot of scripture study and prayer to try to get my mind back in gear. My heart is still there, but the mind just gets in the way. “Apply thine heart to understanding” right?

Anyway, we would appreciate your prayers for us to find new investigators – somehow. I don't know exactly how it's going to happen, but I know there are people here who are just waiting for the Gospel.

I love you guys.

Elder Lobo