I´m training a new missionary that just got here this week. His name is Elder Buarque. He´s from São Paulo, and he doesn´t speak English. It´s pretty great. We´re having a good time working here in Alverca.
So, Elder Buraque wants to learn English, and one of the things that Preach My Gospel suggests to help with this is to speak English when we´re in our house, and the mission language in the street. Yesterday, I decided to ask him if he wanted to start doing that, but to be clever I decided to ask in English. And so I asked, "We want to start speaking English in house?" I then stopped and thought about how that phrase was gramatically correct in Portuguese, but that in English, it just wasnt right. Elder Buarque looked at me confused and asked me what I said. I, in Portuguese, replied, "I can´t teach you English. I don´t remember how it works." I feel fine writing in English, but earlier this week we had to teach a lesson in English and I struggled! The placement of words in English is just so difficult now! It´s great really, that my Portuguese is overruling my English, but it´s also a little strange.
Yeah, I don´t know what´s wrong with me right now, but I just don´t have anything to say. This week was good. I learned and grew. It was good. We should never be ashamed to talk about the Gospel.
Anyway, have a good week everyone! Take some time to search the scriptures, and if you do as Abraham did (see Abr 1:2) and study so that you can be a better follower of righteousness, God will show you things you never imagined before.
I love you all!
Elder Lofthouse
Chapter 26 1/2 - Repentance
After I sent that last email, I felt bad because I didn´t even put anything worth reading in there. The least I can do is go on a little doctrinal rant.
I was studying being a member of Christ, and I ended up in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, and it is just full of great stuff. Paul compares the church to the body, explaining that, of necessity, the members are all different. "If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?" (v. 17) I was thinking of this in context of the mission organization. If all were the APs, who would be the missionaries that spend all day working in the field? If all were the Zone Leaders, who would be the new missionaries, whose "greenie fire" and faith bring so many miracles to the field? "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (v. 27) We are all members in the Church of Christ, each with a unique role to play. We can´t all be the same, but it´s better this way, because everyone has different gifts. So we can´t think that any one isn´t important, and that includes ourselves. Each one of us has a unique role to fulfill, that no other member can. Sometimes we think that if we don´t do our part, some one else will fill in for us, but an eye can´t smell if the nose chooses not to, and the mouth can´t walk if the legs give in early. No, we can´t sirk from our duty, but instead we should remember, "that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." (v 25-26) And how is it that we fulfill our special role to the best of our ability? "But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way." (v.31). If we earnestly seek to develop our spiritual gifts, the Lord will guide us in our use of them, and we as a church, as the people of God, will function as perfectly as the immortal body of the ressurected Lord Jesus Christ.
I love you all, and hope that this email is a little more meaning full than the last!
Elder Lofthouse
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