Pictures will get uploaded later, but here's the letter for this week!

Hey everybody!

Well, this week has been sensational.

Nothing has really changed all that much, but I want to talk about a return I feel like I’ve made.

I’ve described the mission as a fall in a lot of different ways before. When I was at home, everything was provided for, and it was more or less pretty easy to be about as happy as I decided to be, despite all the crazy things happening. Then I left EVERYTHING, more or less, as we all know. The cloud that I thought I walked on before suddenly evaporated from beneath me and it was like Gromit in “A Close Shave” after the sidecar he was in got separated from the motorcycle. It takes pushing a bunch of buttons all at the same time to get the wings open. Even after that, it takes another couple buttons to get the oatmeal gun to pop up.

Before, some people who I worked with often asked me why I had such low expectations in life. I never agreed with them – I didn’t have low expectations, but I never really was able to explain it. Even my boss, Ben, at StowAway2 asked me on my last day how it was that I handled myself. I tried to explain it, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t even know what it was that I was going to explain, but it was something that I never really figured out until now.

When I entered the MTC, I wanted to do my best. However, I don’t know what it is that they put in the food there, but almost everybody who leaves the MTC leaves with this artificial idea of “obedience with exactness”. I took it to an extreme, agonizingly raking myself over the coals anytime I did anything that wasn’t exactly correct. It was and has continued to be very difficult, especially since missionaries tend to take responsibility for the decisions of everybody around them, especially myself. I had been on this ridiculous quest since leaving to find all my weaknesses and then fix them all. I tried to do the same thing with my testimony before I left, trying to answer every question, doubt, or confusion that I had at the time, but it ended up working me down to a void, something I can describe as nothing short of complete darkness and self-exclusion from life. When I realized that I knew more than I thought I knew and that to “know” something is much more of a matter of trust and faith than it is of information, I found this amazing freedom from my knowledge of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome.

Never in my life before the mission did “obedience” ever present itself as an issue to me. But once I hit the MTC, I, along with a significant percentage of others around me, were completely focused on not messing up our one chance in the MTC, trying to do everything perfectly, and since the MTC life was very, very simple, it wasn’t very hard to do more or less “perfectly”.

Once arriving in the mission, life as a greenie was easy. You don’t have anything to do except for your own studies and following your trainer around. Obedience seemed so simple. You just don’t screw up and everything will go fine, right?

Then I got in the office. As many of you remember, I had the niggling question of “Do I do what I think is right or do I do what I am told?” There were no rules to obey exactly in the office. There was no guidance for our job. The church manuals were written more than ten years before and were, in all reality, obsolete. “Never have I given a temporal commandment unto the children of men”, right? But all these guidelines seemed so temporal and obsolete. They were! What in the world was I supposed to do?

I did my best. And I was happy by the end.

Then I came to Almada with that new perspective, and things went pretty well.

Then I got a greenie, and, simply, I reverted to perfectionism. I was so weighed down by imperfection and inadequacy, trying to guarantee some form of success by completing the “small things”, which I couldn’t do perfectly, so I felt like it was hopeless to have any kind of promise fulfilled (D&C 82:10). Anytime something good happened, it felt as if it were chance or coincidence because I knew I wasn’t perfect enough to merit something like that.

I started reverting to what I now call “checklist obedience”, meaning that I should be able to check off all of my duties as being done, and day after day, week after week, it wasn’t happening like I wanted it to. The value of teaching an investigator was about as valuable as washing dishes, because I was supposed to do both, and not doing either would equally keep me from being “exactly obedient” or perfect.

Elder and Sister Kearon, in the Europe Area Presidency, spoke to the mission on Friday. Sister Kearon’s talk spoke right to my center. She spoke about feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and confusion in such a sensitive and precise way that I wish I could study what she said like we study certain conference talks we love. She said so eloquently and gracefully what can only be summarized as “It’s OK. Jesus will make everything alright.” Since Friday I was digesting this idea with what was already in my starving spiritual stomach.

I realized once again on Sunday, as I had in the office, that “exact obedience” is not what we think it is. God doesn’t command in all things, so we can’t have a perfect checklist to obey. It’s not about being perfect. Jesus Christ did not come to save perfect people. He gave his life for the imperfect people.

Monday morning, I was reading in 3 Nephi 10. This is during the destruction prior to the descension of Christ, where the people are weeping bitterly and wailing with very good reason for the loss of their friends and family. They had every reason to be lamenting the loss of their loved ones. It was obvious that the destruction came because of their choice to be wicked. How horrible is it to watch somebody choose to refuse Christ and watch your chance to help them slip away. The Voice says, “How oft I have gathered you... How oft I would have gathered you... and How oft will I gather you...” He’s got his bases covered. Even more reason to deeply mourn the loss of those who refused it in the past, especially ourselves. He will gather us. Once the darkness receded and the mist disappated and the tremors halted, the weeping and wailing ceased. The anguish turned into joy.

What had changed? The immediate situation was much less tumultuous, but they had still lost their family and friends. They could probably see the bodies of those injured and killed in the destruction, along with the ruin and scarred face of the earth. What had changed?

The lamentations turned into thanksgiving for the Lord Jesus Christ, their redeemer.

Monday in district meeting, I talked about this and very emotionally talked about when Miguel chose not to talk to us anymore. But I realized something at that moment that was incredible.

In Preach My Gospel, there’s an activity that says to “express gratitude for the manifestations of the Lord’s hand in your work.”

Let’s define our terms:
Gratitude: The uncontrollable joy felt because of something somebody else has done.
Manifestation: A small representation of something much larger. (like the dorsal fin of a great white shark cutting through the surface of the water)

I read in Moses 7 again that morning: the vision of Enoch. He was so bitterly tormented until the absolute end of the vision (Moses 7:67), which was when he saw the very hour of the redemption of the righteous.

This is when “Jesus will make everything alright.”

That was when Enoch received his fulness of joy, as mentioned in Moses 7:67. Nothing matters without that day. Any blessing we could receive in this life would be completely worthless without the Redemption. It would all be lost. We need that redemption, and very little more. We should be grateful for everything that He gives us. While He gives us many temporal blessings, those things are great, but I just want that last day.

I’m easy to please. My needs are simple, thanks to Jesus Christ. That’s how I managed to live happily without really knowing it. It was because I knew that nothing in this life really matters as much as we think it does, because everything depends upon that great last day.

We can be happy by being grateful of manifestations of that great day to come in our everyday life. Small changes in investigators, members, or even ourselves are small samples of what the hour of our redemption will be like. The time that we feel our burdens made just barely lighter, we can be grateful for that manifestation of the time when “Jesus will make everything alright.”

I am so unbelievably thankful for Jesus Christ, because I know that He will make everything alright. I am so thankful for this time that I have to have a sample of what it must be like for Him to shepherd us in. It’s painful, but it’s amazing. He doesn’t need my help. He could do this Himself. But he lets me experience it.

We should express gratitude for the manifestations of the perfect change that can happen within us and those we love, when Christ will cure our spiritual blindness and deafness, like he did physically while he walked physically on the Earth. He will make everything alright.

The Gift of the Holy Ghost is so much simpler we think it is. We may think that we have to “qualify” for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and that’s true in a sense. When we establish our own terms for that qualification, like a perfectionist checklist of commandments we have to obey, we lose it. The greatest of all the gifts of God is eternal life (which is a perfection of our agency, which is the greatest gift God has ALREADY given us). Eternal life can be nothing more complicated than joy. The Gift of the Holy Ghost in its simplicity is nothing more than peace in knowing with certainty that Jesus really will make everything alright.

After realizing all this, I have felt as if I have been born again. I have felt able to forgive myself. I have felt unrestrained in loving and forgiving others. I have felt peace. I have been happy. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s nothing that I did or will do, aside from expressing gratitude for manifestations of the day when Jesus will make everything alright.

Let’s be more grateful – and let’s never forget that great day that will come.

Love to all,

Elder Lobo