Scripture of the week: Mosiah 5:12

Ola, Tudo Bem!

This we worked a lot.

Scripture of the week: Mosiah 5:12 

"I say unto you, I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts, that ye are not found on the left hand of God, but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called, and also, the name by which he shall call you."

This scripture is really important. We need to rewrite our desires especially after baptism. When we make that covenant with God, we promise to obey his commandments and basically try to exemplify Christ's attributes in every way possible. Also this scripture helps us see that we need to work at learning how to hear the voice of the Lord. We are not perfect, Heavenly Father knows that. He knows that we won't obey perfectly.  He knows our weaknesses and he is perfectly patient with us. As we practice obeying the commandments of the Lord, we will grow hearing and following the voice of the lord. If we try perfectly here to learn how to obey the commandments of the Lord, we will know the voice of the Lord on the last day. We will know the voice that calls us.  We will recognize it because we have tried our hardest to learn it during this time. 

I know the church is true - that God is patient with us. He has given us leaders with spiritual revelation and keys to help us in our lives. He loves us. 

Elder Fogg

Missão Portugal Lisboa

2016-2018

Be blunt and be bold

Miracle: Nossa amiga Cidalia chegou nas aguas de Batismo esta semana! Cidalia is a Portuguese women that we found while searching for some one else in our Area Book. She already knows the missionaries -- some of her family members are members of the church. She is a very spiritual person. She has a mission that she has received from God. She has to help people in need, that is her mission. Fine by me. Cidalia is one of the Elect. She was willing to change and she did change. With Cidalia I learned what it means to be blunt and be bold. Sometimes I would have doubts if we taught her the word of wisdom that she wouldn't let us come back but that was the adversary talking. When I heard the voice of the spirit tell me what we needed to teach or to clarify, we taught it or clarified it. There are people who are just ready to hear the gospel, and she was one of them.  We had her baptism on Friday. Elder Rogers baptized her ( was reminiscent of how I baptized Salva a couple of weeks ago). And this Sunday she received the Holy Ghost. It was amazing seeing the change in her life. I was glad to be a part of it.

 

Jejum: Neste tranferencia estamos a fazer um jejum como uma missão. So this transfer we are doing a fast as a mission where everyday one or two missionary companionships fast for the entire mission. This week it was our turn to do the fast. I was on a division with the Elders of Tavera and there we felt the pain of the fast. It was really hard. It was like we could feel the weight of the mission on our shoulders. I don't want to sound self-righteous but I felt a little bit like the Savior during that time. I was able to feel just for a couple hours what it was like for him with all of us depending on His sacrifice. It helped me learn more about the nature of the atonement. I wanted to stop a couple of times, not going to lie. We did a complete fast, no food and no water, even though we were still proselyting during that time. But I knew that the entire mission was depending on us and I didn't give up because I knew the blessings the others would receive and the miracles that we would see from it. 

 

Elder Fogg

Missão Portugal Lisboa

2016-2018

''This is was what we received as revelation that we need to share with your family specifically"

Hey,

 

So this week we worked really hard.

 

Cool: Os  Sholfman's e o Aniversario de Elder Rogers. Elder and Sister Schlofman came to inspect our apartment this week. It was really fun seeing them again. They were impressed with our cleaning job that they only gave us ''kind of clean needs work'', which both Elder Rogers and I are both really proud of. (Probably because we procrastinated cleaning until the very last moment, so that was one of the bigger wins of the week this week. The other cool part was that that day was also the birthday of Elder Rogers. Happy Birthday! yoot. But the best part was that the Scholfman's took us to this Brazilian barbeque place. It was a buffet with the meet on stakes that they take around to each table and it was all you can eat! IT was the bomb. Also that night we talked with one of our amigas and she had said she would try to get us a tub of ice cream because she has a friend that works at this ice cream place. Well when she heard that it was Elder Rogers birthday, she made sure we got that tub. And it was really good ice cream! I would say that Elder Rogers had a good birthday.

Spiritual: Trabalhando com os membros. This week we shifted our focus a little bit. We are trying to stop by all the houses of the members that are active in our branch every week. We have a list of active families and we divided the list into areas and gave one half to the sisters and we took the other half. We tried to pass by all these families during the week, trying to strengthen them spiritually. So Elder Rogers and I planned really hard for the families we were going to pass by and we prayed and we practiced, revised prayed and practiced so more. Yesterday we visited two of those families and I still remember how unprepared I felt. I said a prayer in my heart that even though I am slow of speech and can't speak the language correctly that the spirit could be there and strengthen them. The first family that we visited we didn't share the scripture that we planned, we didn't talk about the stuff we had planned, we followed the spirit and what it wanted us to say. In the end we left them with an invitation to pray and read the Book of Mormon together as a family. It was amazing what happened next. The less active son who was sitting on the couch playing video games (who I thought was completely not paying attention but apparently was half listening) piped up and said ''Ya I would do that if we did it as a family''. The parents then asked us if this was the message that we were giving to all the families. ''No'' I confessed ''This is was what we received as revelation that we need to share with your family specifically''. The parents said ''This is what we need as a family, how did you guys know?'' Prayer and revelation are real. D&C 84:85, we need to plan, but in the moment we will be given the revelation that we need.

Happy Fourth of July

I hope all had a Merry Christmas... I mean Fourth of July.

This was an interesting week. Elder Moses left for Setubal on Tuesday so while I was waiting for Elder Rogers to arrive I got to spend some time with Elder Lopes and Elder Heiner in Tavira. It was fun being with them but their house has this aconditioner, oh my, it was really close to being the miracle of the week but fell a little short. Later that day after we left the comfy confines of the air conditioned casa  I got my new companion Elder Rogers.

New Companion: Elder Rogers. He will be 24 this upcoming Saturday. He has already graduated from college in business managing. He graduated from Utah State recently. He joined the Church 4 years ago. Right before his friend was leaving for a mission, he told his friend to practice teaching the lessons with him. And he was baptized the day his friend left for his mission. He likes to lift things, usually weights but other heavy object too (I am assuming). He likes to drink a lot of Whey. #Lifting #Workout #DoYouEvenLiftBro? #ComeAtMe #NotReally,IWasJoking,PleaseDon't

Miracle: This week president Tavares challenged us to be ''Usado'' or basically to be bold. So that's what I tried to do. We were teaching an Investigator Carlos. He has a problem with drinking. As we were teaching the lesson, I was trying to think of which commandment we would teach him so that he could progress the most. Immediately the Word of Wisdom came to mind, but then I thought ''if you teach the Word of Wisdom, you'll scare him away/lose him''. But I knew where that thought came from, not from the Lord. So I decided to be bold and teach about the Word of Wisdom. After we had taught him the Word of Wisdom and explained that god wants us to take care of our bodies so we can't drink, he told us, ''I don't actually like drinking.  It's a bad habit.  I do it because I am mad.''  We made plans to help him stop. I could feel the spirit testifying to me that the Word of Wisdom is really of God and also that those thoughts that I had were from God and that if I follow the spirit in my mission and later in my life, I will do the right and will be blessed. 

Merry Christmas,

Elder Fogg

Missão Portugal Lisboa

2016-2018

Pics - Olhao

Happy Birthday America!

Ola tudo bem!

Happy Birthday America! And Dinis got baptized!

Transfer Week: I am staying in Olhão! Wo! Hoo! Ye Haw! Aiight! Elder Moses is leaving and I am getting a new companion. His name is Elder Rogers. I Feel like maybe doing the thing from the ''Best Two Years'' when Elder Calhoon meets Elder Rogers for the first time. ''Elder Johnson, Elder Vanpelt, Elder Rogers.... Elder Rogers....  Mijn nieuwe collega...''. So ya cool.

Funny: Elder Moses and I had to go to Lisboa this week because Elder Moses had to renew his residency here in Portugal. So we had to leave our area in the Algarve and take a train and go all the way to Lisboa and stay the night there with the office Elders. Well, the office Elders were doing something important (probably), and they didn't get home until 3 o'clock in the morning. So when we got up, I didn't want to wake them up because they hadn't got much sleep, and my razor makes a lot of noise so I didn't shave. But we had to leave really early in the morning to go to do this residency thing, so by the time we got to the mission office it was already time to leave and I didn't have time to shave. We did the residency stuff pretty quickly and when they brought us back to the mission office, President Tavares was standing right there in the door way. When he saw me, he didn't say a word.  He only looked at me then rubbed my cheek with the back of his hand and said ''Elder missionaries are supposed to shave aren't they''. Oops. I had my razor in my backpack so I went to shave immediately. When I finally finished, He came over again and put his hands on the shoulders of Elder Moses and I and looked at me and then at Elder Moses and said 'I love you guys Elders'' and started to laugh.

Spiritual: This week we taught a lesson with a investigator named Cedalia. She is very spiritual. She is having trouble with some of her family members. We had given her a book of Mormon previously and she has felt the power of the book.  We taught lessons with her about the Plan of Salvation and how God has given us our families so that we can be happy and the difficulties we have are just here so we can grow. I then bore my testimony about how important my family was to me. The spirit was there testifying to me that it was true and therefore it was testifying to her too the it was also true. My family is so important to me. I love them.  They have helped me so much. Why then would I leave them for 2 years to go to a place where I won't be able to see them. Because the Book of Mormon is true. The Church is true. Jesus is the Christ, the god of Israel.

Elder Fogg

Missão Portugal Lisboa

2016-2018

Pictures: June 2017