Chapter 43 - "That's it. I'm putting my fish in a glove."

So, here in the Açores, we have the best P-days in the whole world. Hiking, playing around, exploring, and last week, fishing! I´d never fished in the ocean before, and it was pretty fun. THe fishing poles didn´t have reals, it was just a big stick with a line. We spent the first part of the trip catching crabs and sea worms to use as bait, and then we put them on the hooks, and started fishing. I got the first one, and ended up with three in the end. It was super fun.

On a more missionary/spiritual note, things here are going like normal. We have an investigator that has been coming to church for a year, but she couldn´t get baptized because she wasn´t married, and she couldn´t get married until the papers for her divorce got through, and it was taking forever, but they finally came through! There´s still a little bit more to do, but she should be getting married and baptized in September! So that´s super exciting.

I wanted to share a scriptural thought, but I can´t think of anything, so you´ll all have to search the scriptures yourselves to find it.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Lofthouse

Chapter 42 - Mudanças

This week in a flash:

• We had zone conference. We learned a lot about ellimenating distractions ( I can not spell in English anymore, and this computer can´t, either)
• Because we´re on a bunch of islands, we got to ride a plane to the conference! There are only three groups that use planes: Presidente, the APs, and the missionaries in the Açores!
• This is the last week of Presidente Tavares! Our new Presidente will be getting here em breve, and then the two missions in Portugal will become one mission. We´re going to have like 260 missionaries in our mission!
• Sunday was also good...for some reason (my secrets are my own).

Well, that was this week. I finished reading the Book of Mormon and New testament in Portuguese, and I restarted the Book of Mormon, but this time I´m going slow. Really slow. Today is Day four, and I´m in 1 Nephi 1:5. This was the first time that I actually stopped to think about things, and I´m learning a ton. That little paragraph intro that  Nephi put at the beggining is full of good stuff!

"An account of Lehi and his wife Sariah, and his four sons, being called, (beginning at the eldest) Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi." This is the first line in this ancient, sacred record. What do we learn? It´s a book about people. Who are people? We are! It´s a book about us! The next two words are, "The Lord." So it´s about The Lord, too. It´s a book about us and the Lord! And what happens? The Lord invites the people to leave where they are. That´s what He does for us, too! We have to leave the world, our current lives, and our distractions and follow His voice. We may end up in the wilderness for eight years, but that´s part of the plan! We also learn in this little intro about three grand dificulties we may face. "They come to the large waters. Nephi’s brethren rebel against him." We might face tasks that we cannot overcome by our own force (large waters) or we may face people that mock us, resist us, or try to knock us off course (sometimes people that ought to be our brothers, or supporters). What must we do?  "He confoundeth them, and buildeth a ship." We have to stay firm, defend our faith, and then work and do everything we can to solve the problems! Those are the first two dangers the next one is a little more hidden.  "They call the name of the place Bountiful. They cross the large waters into the promised land " They were in a good place at this point. They had made it through the desert to Bountiful. That sounds like a nice place to be. Probably full of food, honey, life, and other nice things. But they had to leave. Sometimes, we look at our life and think, "Wow, I´m really happy where I am. I don´t feel like I need anything more." Lots of people say this to us. This is false humilty, and false gratitude. When the Lord calls us to leave good places, we don´t stay because of humility or gratitude, but because we are comfortable, happy, and unwilling to sacrifice that comfort. But Bountiful is not the Promised Land. We have to leave the good, comfortable life, and face the storms of the great waters. But in the end, we will be in a better place, the Promised Land, where God wants us to be. And we learned all that, just in the little intro that sometimes I skip when I read 1 Nephi! If we slow down and think about the scriptures, we´ll find a lot more spiritual treasures.

Well, I´ll just give a shout out to my friend Jenna (she knows why Sunday was good) and wish you all a great week!

I love you all!

Chapter 41 - Estou

Hey, everyone! I´m still alive. 

So, we had transfers. My new companion is Elder Dowdle. He´s from Utah. That´s pretty exotic. He´s a good singer.

I´m sorry. I want to write you all more, but my brain is empty. We worked a lot this week. I read the scriptures. It was really good. I started reading Jesus the Christ, and it´s been pretty good so far. I recomend it to all.

I´ll try to write more next week. Everytime I sit down to write my mind goes blank. Sorry.

Amo a todos vocês!

ELder Lofthouse

Chapter 40 - Eating Words and Watching Bull Fights

I sent an email a little while ago about the power of words. Well, I discovered in the last three weeks, that they are even more powerful than I thought. Sometimes, you say things, not thinking that the Universe is listening, and then it decideds that you should eat those words. For example, three weeks ago in church, I told a story during sunday school about how on the last day in the MTC, my throat was hurting like crazy (it felt like strep) and I couldn´t swallow. So I asked for a blessing from two other Elders, and "I haven´t had a sore throat since that day." The last three weeks, my throat has been sore every single day and I can not stop coughing. We finally came to the conclusion that it was because of all the flowers that opened up on the island. They´re beautiful, but there is no end to the pollen in the air. Then, last week, our investigator Fátima heard me coughing and asked if I was sick. I told her that it was just in my throat, and for some reason I went into detail and explained that I didn´t have a head ache, I didn´t feel super weak in my whole body, and I didn´t feel feverish. Can anyone guess what happened the next day? That´s right! I woke up so sick that we spent the next three days at home! It was awful. But, God loves us a blessed us with a Tourada (basically a bull fight in the street) on our street! So we stuck our heads out and watched. It was kind of funny. They don´t have professional Matadores in these touradas. Any random person that wants to play around with an angry bull can just go in the street and do it. Turns out, bulls run a lot faster than people (unless you turn. They can´t corner very well).

Being sick at home, I had a lot of time to read the scriptures, but I can´t remember anything that I read. However, I read 1 Nephi 1 this morning, and found a verse that I really like.

12 And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord. 

What better way to start the most spiritually uplifting book in all of human history. Even though Lehi was reading a different book, the promise is the same. For those that study the Book of Mormon, the companionship of the Spirit will be stronger and sweeter. I´ve probably already ranted about this, but everyone needs to study the scriptures, on their own, every day. And I´m sorry for preaching against what many of you have heard, but a verse a day is not enough! That´s like saying eating a baby carrot enough for the day. If that´s all you eat, you are going to starve and die. If one verse is all you read (unless you take more time afterwards to ponder and pray about one verse. That´s okay) your spirit is going to starve and die. Maybe you feel tempted to complain that you don´t have time to read. Once, when Elder Leal and I were planning a baptism for our friend Sofia, she told us that it couldn´t happen because she was going to the mall that day. We asked her how long, and she told us about three hours, to which Elder Leal replied, "There are 24 hours in a day. When are you going to get baptized?" I now say this to all of you. There are 24 hours in a day. When will you read the scriptures? When I was in high school, my parents woke me and my siblings up at 5:30 every morning to read the scriptures together. Sometimes that´s what it takes. But reading the scriptures is more important that sleep, and food, and expecially more important than Netfilx, sports, video games, social media, any other worldy entertainment.

I´m not sure why I feel so fired up to write this to you all this week, but if there is anyone reading this that need to improve their scripture study habits, I promise that it´s worth it. As we read in the 1 Nephi 8, when Lehi tasted the fruit of the tree of life, it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. If anyone needs ideas on how to study, I´ll share what I know, but I really just want everyone to have time alone with the Lord and His words eveyday, because He is the only way to get back to Heaven. Nothing else can. No degree, diploma, promotion, acheivement, or anything we can do will get us to Heaven. We have to be in a convenent relationship with the Savior, and keep that relationship strong. That is the only way to be saved.

I love you all so much!

Oh, and Mr. Stolworthy, the Cabral family does remeber you! They say hi.

Até próxima!

Elder Lofthouse

Chapter 39 - This Week Nothing Happened

Hey everyone! Nothing happened this week.

The Principles of the Gospel book is super good. Y´all shoud study it.

Love you all!

Elder Lofthouse

Chapter 38 - Portuguese Mathematics Determine Destiny

Hey, everyone! The island is still an island. Cool history fact: This island was first settled by people from Portugal, but during a lot of time, the Spanish armada was trying to take over all the islands. When they started sailing towards Terceira, the people got pretty freaked out, and started getting ready for a huge battle. But there was this one lady, Brianna Pereira, who said basically, "Wait a second, guys. This island is full of wild cows. Come with me." And they rounded up all the wild bulls they could find and got them all together above the bay. When the Spanish soldiers disembarked and tried to strom the island, they started a big stampede and the bulls rushed the soldiers. Well, they all forgot their what-to-do-if-instead-of-meeting-an-army-you-get-charged-by-a-bunch-of-bulls training, and tried to flee back into the bay, but they were covered in super heavy armor and a better part of the army drowned. Thus, the island was saved, and not a single inhabitant was killed. Brianna became a legend on the island. We got to visit her house. It was cool.

My favorite doctrine I studied this week was in Mormon 9. That chapter is just awesome. You should all read it, and then read Hebrews 11. With faith, anything is possible. Miracles are still real.

Sorry, I can´t think of anything more right now, except for one thing that happened this week that has just been bugging my mind since it happened.

We were at a member´s house helping a soon-to-be-ordained deacon prepare a talk about the priesthood and making sure he was ready to recieve that priesthood. In the middle of this, his seven year old sister, Lara, came up to me, and I still don´t understand everything that happened, but this is how it went.

Lara: "Who do you want to marry?"

Me:"What?"

Lara:"Nevermind, I´ll figure it out. Choose a number."

Me:"Um...9"

Lara counts out nine (on my fingers) singing some Portuguese song.

"Hmm... no, choose another number."

"11"

She counts out all the fingers on my hands, twice.

Me:"Wait, you did 20. I said 11."

Lara:"No, two hands plus two hand is 11."

"No it´s not! Ten plus ten is twenty!"

"No, five plus five plus five plus five is eleven! Let me show you."

She gets a paper and writes: 5+5+5+5=20

Me:"Yes, that´s what I said."

Lara:"But this is wrong."

She erases 20 and writes 11, making 5+5+5+5=11

Me:"No it doesn´t!"

Lara:"Wait, it´s subtraction."

5-5-5-5=11

"No, that´s -10!"

"No, because 5-5 is 0, minus five more is seven, and minus five more is eleven."

"Ah! Your math makes no sense. I just want to know who I´m going to marry.!

"How old are you?"

"19"

"Well, when your 28 your going to marry a theif."

"But what´s her name?"

"Joana."

This was pretty much the end of that conversation. If any one can figure out the math she was doing, I would love to hear it, but cause I think the answer to "Who am I going to marry" is hidden in the numbers.

Well, that´s all for today.

Chão

Elder Lofthouse