Chapter 19 - The Stripling Alvercanites

Tudo bem, todo mundo! How is everyone this week? I hope you are all doing great.

Today´s email will basically just be a tribute to the youth of Alverca. They are awesome. The young men are always willing to help us, go out with us, and even do practices and street contacts with us. They invite their friends, and they fellowship the investigators we bring without reserve. Last Saturday we got to baptize Luis, a great young man, and the other youth of the ward have already brought him into the fold. One rapaz, Arthur, went to Luis´s house just to play Fifa18 with him. It was great. And then, yesterday, the young men were all gathered together at the bishop´s house, and they brought one less active and one non-member. We taught them all the about the Restoration (and they new so many scriptures and stories and all sorts of stuff) and we marked the non-member, Breno, for baptism this Saturday! And once again, he´s already completely welcomed into the ward by the young men. Really, it´s just the greatest. They youth of the church are so powerful and can do so much. The primary, too. The adults help tons, as well, and basically missionary work is about a gazillion times better when the members help. And what is the best way for a member to help. The best thing they can do is bring people to church. That is the hardest roadblock to overcome. Our mission president said that we need to tell all the members this: "Everyone you know should know that you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and that you want them to come to church with you and they are always invited and welcome." So I invite everyone to invite someone to church. If you don´t feel comfortable doing that, then practice! I´ve probably practiced teaching more than I have actually taught, and that´s because practicing lets you get used to something, and get all the bad tries out of the way before the real thing. And then just do it! You could be the one who changes someone´s life and gets them on the path to exaltation. Think about everything Christ did so that you could return to God. Is it really so hard to invite someone else to enjoy those same blessings?

Okay, I´m done laying into you. Some other cool things happened this week. We did divisions with Póvoa and Vila Franca de Xira, and when I was in Vila Franca, I got to see the Portugal Porto Mission, and the mountains that are between Portugal and Spain. Portugal is really small. It´s about the same length north to south as Utah. Everything is close. Except the Azores. They´re a group of islands that are part of our mission, and the one furthest away from Portugal is about halfway between here and America.

I added some more pictures to my folder for you all. Enjoy!

I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Elder Lofthouse

Chapter 18 - All Good on the Alverca Front

Well, another week has passed, and I still can´t think of anything to write. Last week I didn´t even have time to write, but that was mostly okay, since I have little to say normally. I am still fighting God´s battle here in Alverca, but I´m now with Elder Leal, a missionary from San Paulo, Brazil. He´s super cool, super spiritual, and I´m excited to lean a lot from him. We´ve been working hard, and have a cool young man named Luis that should be getting baptized this week. Yay!

This week for my doctrinal thought, I just want to turn back to the basics. In fact, I want to talk about the base of the Gospel. We believe that the first principle of the Gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is that? What is the power of faith? I can´t even begin to answer these questions completely, but I´ll try. God works according to the faith of men. Please read Ether 12 and Moroni 7 and 10 if you don´t beleive me. No miracle has ever come without someone exercising faith before. And the great thing about faith, is that we can use it ever day, and ever time we use it, it gets stronger. In what ways can we use our faith? Scripture study is an act of faith. Setting goals is an act of faith. Working to achieve those goals is an act of faith. Being nice is an act of faith. Curbing your own anger and giving other the benifit of the doubt is an act of faith. These little things we do strengthen our faith, and give God the opportunity to pour blessings out on us, and realize miracles in our lives.

That´s all I have to say for today. I love you all, and hope you have a great week!

Elder Lofthouse

Chapter 16 - JW

J.W.

Just, wow. That is all I can say about this week. Were you hoping for a story about Jehova´s Witnesses? Okay, fine. On Monday, we were meeting with an investigator who is the father of a member. While we were talking, some one knocked on the door. The son (the member) went to go answer, and then came back saying, "Oh, no, I can´t do this right now. It´s the Testamunhas de Jeová. I don´t want them here at the same time as you." And Elder Carreira said, "Yeah, we don´t want to start a war. But if you had let them in, I have all these scriptures ready to destroy their arguments." And he showed us a special list of scripture references he had put together just for the JW´s. And then, they knocked again. Irmão Fernando looked at Elder Carreira, then said, "Okay, you guys can answer the door." So we did. It was just about the most awkward thing that has happened here in Portugal. We didn´t bash, they just looked at us and said, "Um... we can try again later."

Now, for the day that really made this week "just wow." I was on splits with Elder Fonseca, who is still training, too, and we did a little bit of tracting. Now, in my area, tracting works, but with much more rejection than acceptance. That´s true of most missions. But that day, we tracted less than twenty doors, and in about an hour and a half we found four new investigators, and that day we taught seven lessons. That is just... wow. It really was a miracle.

But best of all, we baptized Irmão Fracisco yesterday! He´s the investigator whose son is a member. It was my first baptism! It was awesome. That´s all I can say.

Also, we got our transfer calls. I´ll be staying here in Alverca, but I´m getting a new companion! Elder Leal is from San Paulo, Brazil. I´m hoping his Brazilian accent won´t ruin the Portuguese one I´ve been trying to develop.

I don´t really have any doctrine to share this week. I have been learning a lot about gratitude, and as I´ve tried to be grateful during hard times, I have found that I´m happier and actually function better through out the day. So my invitation for the week is for you to be more grateful. Count your blessings, and read the talk "Grateful in any Circumstance" by President Utchdorf. It´s super good.

That´s all for this week. I love you all, and hope you are all having the best day of your life everyday!

Elder Lofthouse​