Lofthouse in Lisbon Chapter 10

Maybe I spend too much of my emails about doctrine, and not enough on what is happening.

Yes, things are happening here, but doctrine is what really makes me excited. But I'll try.

Very few people were being taught when I got here. And by no work of my hands, we now have

investigators galore. Well, not really, but we had three at church, one on-date, another that has

said yes to baptism, but not on-date, and few more that are interested and learning more.

Actually, I've been amazed by how some people just want to learn more, and others don't.

Continuing on with stories, we did some service this week. We helped a recent convert change

a tire on his bike. We also helped put up dry wall and sheet rock on a make-shift house that a

member was building in their machine shop, because their current house got sold and they are

endeavoring to build their new house as fast as possible.

Okay, now I want to talk about doctrine. We had zone conference this week and it was amazing. We learned about a lot of Hebrew writing styles, because they are everywhere in the Book of Mormon. You have parallelism, chiasmus, and other things (like saying "river of water" instead of just "river"). Chiasmus are poems that start with some point, and then move through a series of points to the main idea of the passage, and then works backwards through the points before. It can be as short as, "I need milk, so I go to the store to get the milk I need" or as long as the book of 1Nephi. That's right, all of 1 Nephi is a chiasma. So is the book of Mosiah. Single chapters are as well, including 1 Nephi 8, and Alma 36. Let's look at Alma 36. First phrase, " My son, give ear to my words." Last phrase, "This is according to his [God's] word." Verse one "Keep the commandments" Verse 30, going backwards, "keep the commandments." V. 1 "Ye shall prosper in the land," V 30, "Ye shall prosper in the land." V. 2 "remembering the captivity of our fathers" end of V. 29 " retain in remembrance... their captivity." Do you see the pattern? And the most important part of any chiasma is the center, the main point. All of Alma 36 revolves around verse 18, when Alma turned his heart to Jesus Christ and cried to Him for mercy. That was the main message Alma was trying to teach Helaman in this chapter. Turn unto Christ!

Wow, that's a lot, and I'm not even into what I wanted to write about today. First off, I have a question. How many of you reading this are of the bloodline of Abraham? President Dymock asked us this my first day here, and I had no idea if I was. He said, "Four of you raised your hands. This is the saddest part of our church. The members don't know who they really are." And I have learned so much about the House of Israel. First off, 95% of the world can trace their family line to Abraham. All of you are part of his family, of which God said "all the nations of the earth shall be blessed" by this family. As children of Abraham, we are all part of the Abrahamic Covenant. All the promises that God made with Abraham are ours as well. Everything going on in the world has to do with the scattering, and now, the gathering of Israel. If you read all of 1 Nephi and look for the one thing that was on Nephi's mind the whole time he was writing, it's the scattering and gathering of Israel.

I can't explain all this nearly as well as President Dymock, but I hope you can in part feel what I've felt the last few weeks. These are the last days. Israel must be gathered. That is why we got the Book of Mormon. It was revealed on September 22, which is the beginning of the harvest season in ancient Israel. Why was it given then? Because the Book of Mormon is the tool God has chosen for the gathering of Israel. In D&C 4, it says to thrust in our sickles. That is the Book of Mormon. God told Nephi that the words that his seed would right would be the means of gathering scattered Israel. We need to get people to read the Book of Mormon. Only through it can we bring our family back together.

Now, I know this has been going on a lot, but what good is me teaching a bunch of doctrine if nothing changes? No, no, no. After you teach, you always invite. So here is my invitation to you. First, read Ezekiel 37. Read it, ponder it, and email me what you think it means. If you do this, next week I'll give you a prize of sorts. Secondly, I don't want reading missionary emails to be the full extent of anyone's exposure to missionary work. If it's a choice between reading my emails, and doing missionary work yourself, do the work! Talk to people! Look for and pray for opportunities to share the Gospel. People need it. They don't know it, but they do. Anyone who has a missionary experience in the next week can email me about it, and they will also get a prize.

There's also a secret hidden in this email. If you find it, email me, but don't tell anyone.

Okay, I'm done. Here's a bunch of pictures of stuff.

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Lofthouse in Lisbon Chapter 9 - Smoke, Signs, and Scriptures

This week was... short. I feel like I sent my last email yesterday. Email once a week is just way too much. It would be so much easier to just do one long report at the end of the two years. Or we could just be like Alma and the Sons of Mosiah, and not see each other for fourteen years, and then we would be so happy that we collapse.

Anyway, this week was super smoky. Our mission is surrounded in a ring of fire. Monday evening we were biking to dinner, and halfway up the large hill that we half to go up, we got a text from the President's Assistants telling us not to bike or walk anywhere. Oh, well. It was too late for that. We survived.

The work is picking up a bit. We have one boy on date for baptism, three other investigators we're teaching, and three more on top of that who want to be taught. Hopefully I'll have some cool stories in the next few weeks.

Oh, there's also a cougar that lives in our area. There have been tons of people who have seen it, and we bike near where it was seen almost everyday. I'll try to get a picture if I see it. Or I'll just run away. I guess we'll wait and see.

Okay, now for the fun stuff. We had a new missionary training on Friday, and it was awesome! We learned more about the number symbolism I talked about last week, and now I have something for you all to do. Do you want to see God? Go outside to night and find the big dipper. It is a constellation with seven stars, divided into three in the handle and four in the cup. In Hebrew, three is covenants and completion, four is mortality and man, and together they are seven, which is perfection. Also, as many of you know, the big dipper's cup points towards the north star. The north star is part of the little dipper, which has the same seven star pattern, and everything revolves around the north star, and the little dipper points back to the big one. The big dipper is Heavenly Father. He points us to Christ, and everything revolves around Him. And He points us back to His father. Isn't that so cool?

We also delved into the scriptures a lot, and I found out that footnotes are awesome. Here's a cool thing we learned from the footnotes that I didn't know before. Genesis 6:16 talks about a window that the Lord instructed Noah to put in the ark. Look at the footnote for window. It says, "tsohar: some rabbis believed it was a precious stone that shone in the ark." Doesn't that sound familiar? That exactly what the Brother of Jared had in the barges. So where did the Brother of Jared get the idea to have glowing stones? He read the scriptures! He read about Noah, and realized that if God can perform miracles for Noah, He could for him, too! The scriptures are so cool, and President Dymock just opens them up in ways that enlighten my mind and strengthen my soul. Everyone needs to study the scriptures every single day. Not just read. Study. And for a good chunk of time. It's true that one verse is better than none, but one verse a day is not going to cut it. There is great treasure to be found in the scriptures, and you don't find treasure by scanning the surface of the ground. You have to search, dig, work, sweat, and explore until you find it. And once you find it, you need to actually take it home! If you find something cool in the scriptures, bring out of them and into your life! If God can work miracles for Noah, He can for you! So pray for miracles and believe they will happen! If Enos had an incredible experience with a deep, meaningful prayer, so can you! So pray more deeply and more meaningfully! We can't just read the Book of Mormon stories. We have to live them! So I challenge you all to do that. Nothing in this life is more important than the Gospel and our families.

Well, that's my rant for the day. I took a picture this week. I got a whole bunch of ties. They need to be made skinnier, and some of them might get sacrificed to be made into new ties, but for now, I have a bunch.

I love you all, and hope you all have a great week!

Podemos fazê-lo! Cristo está a vir!

Lofthouse in Lisbon Chapter 8 - Scripture Symbols

If you all haven't noticed, I really don't know what to put in these emails, so I hope something in here is interesting to you all.

This week was good. It was hot. We walked around a lot. I had my first in-field interview. I practiced Portuguese. We only have one investigator, and he's on date for baptism, and the only difficulty is that he's nine and has a very short attention span. And the more I think about, the more I realize that the Gospel is more important than any other thing we could possible study. It's kind of sad that no one wants to listen. But conversion is a process, and God will never stop working on getting His children to turn to Him. And so, we continue onward.

Since I don't have any cool stories from this week, I want to talk about something I've been learning about and will be learning about more on Friday (if I don't get sent off to Portugal before than). It's the symbolic use of numbers in the scriptures. In Hebrew, most (if not all) numbers have a meaning with them. A few examples are: 1 - God's uniqueness and singularity 2 - Opposition 3 - Also symbolic of God (like the three members of the Godhead), also refers to being consecrated 4 - Mortality, man 5 - Mercy 6 - Incomplete, unholy 7 - Complete, holy, covenants (because 3 is God, 4 is man, 3+4 is 7, and covenants connect God and man). 10 - spiritual perfection. There are a lot of others. Another one I want to mention is that 14 is the Messianic number, always referring to Christ. And how does this apply to the scriptures?

In Alma 31, Alma and some others visit the Zoramites. They listen to their vain praying, and then, Alma offers his own prayer (v.26-35). Count how many times he says "O Lord" or "O God". He does it 14 times. He is calling on the powers of Christ to come upon the Zoramites and bring them back into Christ's fold.

Now, Alma 7:23. Here, Alma lists some things to do and attributes to acquire to be more holy.

1 - humble

2 - submissive

3 - gentle

4 - easy to be entreated

5 - full of patience

6 - long suffering

7 - temperate

8 - diligent in keeping the commandments

9 - asking of the Lord for things you need

10 - giving thanks to the Lord

Ten suggestions. And what does ten represent? Spiritual perfection. This is a path to spiritual perfection.

Matthew 1. Matthew here gives a long list of the family history of Jesus. Look in verse 17. The list of names is broken into three sections. Fourteen generations between Abraham and David, fourteen between David and the Babylonian conquest, and fourteen between getting taken to Babylon and Jesus. Three sets of fourteen. Three is consecrated, fourteen is Messiah. Matthew is using Jesus' genealogy to show that He is the consecrated Messiah!

There are tons of examples of this. When the scriptures are talking about the ways the Lord will be merciful, it usually has five parts to it. When it talks about wicked people, it usually has six parts. Everything denotes that there is a God, and all things testify of Christ. Even the numbers used in the scriptures.

I hope this wasn't too deep or crazy. I was just learning about this and thought it was super cool. If any of you want to start counting things in the scriptures and seeing is this works, feel free to tell me how it goes. I don't have the list with me right now, but if anyone wants, I can tell them what the most common number symbolism is.

I hope you all have a good week! Remember, everyday you need to make sure your testimony is bright. Soldiers check their weapons multiple times a day. When Satan comes, you need to make sure that your testimony is founded on Christ, and ready to stand against the onslaught.

I love you all!