Come and I will make you fishers of men

Elder Fogg Mode - Ben Mode

Well this is going to be the last one. As I was thinking of a title for this one I thought of a couple of things... «A sick way to end», «If you are called to lay down your life, die like a man» (Joseph Smith) or «blood and guts». I'll let you guys decide what is the best for this last one.

This week, I got sick. It was annoying to end the mission this way but today I have am better. (hence the titles). We had to stay home Saturday. It was hard staying home and not working. It just goes to show how much of a privilege it is to serve the Lord and how little time we have to do it. At any moment, it could be taken from us. 

I have had a great time on my mission. I have learned a ton. I have grown. At times it hurt, at times it was bliss. As I have come to the end, my mission president asked me what I learned from my mission.  At that time, I had not thought too much.  After that question, I have pondered and I have learned a ton. The only way that I could have learned all that stuff was here on this mission. Yesterday, a sweet sister asked me how I was feeling. She asked «Are you feeling sad? Are you feeling excited? Are you confused?» I am very confused. I feel all those and more. I am sad that I am leaving this behind but happy that I will soon be with family and friends again. Thanks so much for the support and the prayers. I was called to serve by a prophet of God. I heard the voice and did the best I could have done. I hope the Lord consecrates my action to him.

Élder Fogg

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I, thankfully, still have 2 more weeks to throw myself into the Lord's service

We had Zone Conference this week. That was a sleep robbing adventure. Wow, we left the Azores at 7 or so Wednesday, and we didn't get back until midnight Thursday. Needless to say I was wrecked. Zone conference 1 - Elder Fogg 0. Elder Fogg was eliminated. We usually have our zone conferences here, and President comes with the assistants but what happened this time is that the seventy came (Paul V. Johnson). So we all had to go to Lisbon. 

It was crazy, first of all, we didn't get to Lisbon until about 10 ish and we didn't make contact with the Elders we were staying with until 11 o'clock. But better yet, we walked by a less active on the way home. (Why can't they be found in the normal hours of the day? Why do they have to hide until the dark hours of the night to come out?) Well the Elders with whom we were staying decided to stop an talk to him. Let me tell you again, it's 11 at night more like 11:15 or something because their house was not close to the train station either, and they decided to talk with him. I'm not saying «hey dude what up, it'd be cool if you'd go to church» type of thing, but no more of a «here let's sit down and have a cup of tea, *sip* *sip*, with the pinky extended»type of thing.  (I don't have any hard feelings towards them.... why would you say that?)

Somehow in the wee hours of the morning someone realized that it was actually time to sleep, so someone proposed that we all go home and sleep. I was the first one to second it! Their house was really good but they only had two fans. We were stuck in another room with out a fan. Better yet there was also a street light directly outside our window. What a blessing. Needless to say elder Fogg got no sleep that night. And in the morning we didn't eat breakfast.  The Conference was very spiritual. The spirit was talking so strong that at times I was overcome and had to close my eyes and bow my head. 

I saw every Elder from my group that went to Lisbon that is still on a mission right now. It was fun to talk with them and see how they were doing. I also saw, due to the recent merge of the missions, many other people I haven't seen since the MTC that went to Porto. It's was incredibly funny seeing them and being like «Hey it's been a while, almost 2 years... how was your mission?»

Coming home was even better. We didn't leave Lisbon until 9:00 and that means we didn't get home until midnight. The good thing is that I drove the car home because I have a license from here and the other elders had to stay in Lisbon for one more day.

Going back to Lisbon just showed me a early wake up call. It's ending. The next time I go there will be the last time as a missionary. I, thankfully, still have 2 more weeks to throw myself into the Lord's service with all my might.

Élder Fogg

Pics

Hurricane missed us

So this week was kind of hectic, I don't know why.  It always is and for some reason was again this week. We worked a lot. Alfredo and Maria came to church. We thought Tania was also going to come but she didn't. That's the third week that she's missed in a row, sadness. School started today.  Everyone was really sad that summer ended. It didn't change anything for us so I was pretty indifferent. I heard that BYU won!  Go cougs! There was apparently a hurricane coming our way that barely missed us, and I guess there's another headed for us. I've heard that it's going to miss us. It brings to mind that scripture that Satan with throw his fiery darts (well in this case his ''watery'' darts), but we're out here dodging 'em "Samuel the Lamanite" style. 

We are preparing for a mission tour of Elder Paul V. Johnson of the Seventy. It's going to be in Lisbon, so we are going to be traveling for most of the week. I studied hardcore the gospel of Jesus Christ and some talks that the mission sent us to prepare for the meeting. They were really good. Learned a lot about the Gospel. I liked what I learned about repentance. That it's not just asking God to forgive our sins but that repentance is believing that the Savior performed the atonement and that he has the power to change us. An important part is asking forgiveness but we need to add two other important parts: 1. pleading that he will give us the strength to overcome the weaknesses we have and 2. our best efforts. When we do those two things we receive the grace of Christ which is the enabling power. Personally I have also felt that the spirit will be sent to comfort us and give us strength and reassurance that we will improve.

Élder Fogg

Mario got baptized

Hello,

This week many great things have happened. First and foremost, Mario got baptized. We felt as though he needed another week to be completely ready for baptism. When we passed by his house on Friday the day before his baptism, we asked him what he knew about all the commandments. When we asked him, he gave a response that showed he really had a complete and full understanding. At his baptism, we didn't have that many members that said that they could go. We wanted this to be a special day for him. We talked with some of Paula's Family members to see if they could come. They said that they could. At the baptism we ended up with more nonmembers than members but ehh people liked it. They said I may have been a little too forceful on the baptism but there was no Shamu splash zone, so  think I did a pretty good job.  

The other great thing is that "Saints: A standard of Truth" came out, and is it good. Holy moly, I've downloaded the audio to my pin drive and have been listening to it. Wow, I thought I knew a lot about church history. It's really good and tells the story in an interesting way. I would say that (first you should read the Book of Mormon, and second, you should read "Doctrine and Covenants" and "the Bible" and other standard works and probably the Ensign and General Conference talks and then) Saints. It's really good. 

We are helping all in coming unto Christ.  Hope all is well

Élder Fogg

Mario and Paula got married!

This week was very long and seems like eternity passed since last week. Mario and Paula got married! Holy cow that's amazing that it happened. First time on my mission that people I was teaching got married but hey that was cool. We went to the marriage ceremony and saw them sit there and have a government official read a message to them. Took a picture with them. It was interesting to see how the government tries also to protect the family. It's just that they can't protect the family in the same way a church can. With governments, it's the thoughts and best ideas of people trying to do their best, but with the church, it's not our ideas, it's revelation from God. So I thought that was interesting. The members also threw together a little party, like a reception. I'll send pictures next week.   The computer isn't working. It was really cool to see the support from the members for them.

We have been working our buns off trying to help less actives. We helped one, Alfredo, who's been less active for a couple years. He came to church earlier this year, but we decided to talk with him about going to church and the word of wisdom because he smokes. We made a plan to help him stop smoking and to help him go to church and we just passed by everyday. We had contact with him everyday and he got down to 5 cigarettes! And this week the first person I saw when I walked in the building was him! It was incredible! So fun to see when people make and keep commitments because I know that as they do what we say they will get closer to the Lord.

Élder Fogg

It's true, fasting works

Hello,

For the first time in my mission, investigators will be getting married to get baptized! Mario who is the companion of Paula, is going to get married to her so that they he can get baptized. That has never happened. Usually when we bring up getting married to people, they usually laugh in our faces or it ends up falling through. This time they told us that they wanted to get married as fast as possible. O Registro Civil is the fastest way that they can get married, so we went there on Monday. There they told us that you have to make 2 appointments. 1. an appointment to set up the date of the real marriage and to get all the paper work done before hand (all the documents and stuff). 2. the actual marriage that takes place. Usually, they told us, you have to make these things way in advance, like a month in advance to do the first appointment and then another month before the actual marriage. Plus these months of August and September are filled with people wanting to do these marriages. They had no time but they told us to come back on Friday because the lady that does all the marriages was actually on holiday and wouldn't get back until Friday. So we left with little hope. Almost in passing I suggested that we do a fast.  It was a systematic reaction. I didn't think it would result in anything close but maybe they would find a little time toward the end of September or something.

Well on Friday we were doing weekly planning and as we were making plans for the people we are teaching, our phone rang. It was Mario, he started talking to us all excited. They had done the fast and we had done it too. We still hadn't finished but we were going to finish it with our lunch, in a couple of hours. Well he told us that they had found time, and that the marriage was marked for the 28th. I thought, the 28th of October or September? He told us, the 28th of August! I couldn't believe it. It had worked. I was so surprised! But it's true, fasting works.  Now they are going to get married on the 28 and he'll be baptized the same day. It's going to be real great. 

Hope you all are doing well.

Élder Fogg

Miracle...FOOD

This week we had a lot of fun. Found a lot of cool people. Saw some cool stuff. It was great. This week we had a miracle on Wednesday. We had been working hard and had made a lot of appointments with the members. Basically what happened was that all of them thought that we made the appointment with them to eat food. So we ended up having 3 meals that were not made by missionaries, Lunch, Dinner and a post Dinner snack. It was really good. I now know what it's like to serve in Utah... I'm kidding. That was a joke. But it was really a great blessing.

 

This week was not the easiest one.

Fun stuff happened this week.

Spiritual thought: In D+C 121 it says «Meu filho, paz seja com tua alma, sua adversidade e tuas aflições não durarão mais que um momento; e então se suportares bem, Deus te exaltará no alto» verses 7 and 8. Here I won't go over the background about what was happening with Joseph Smith when he received this counsel, I'll just use these words he gave to one servant at one time as the same counsel he gave to other servants in another time. This week was not the easiest one. We worked real hard, did our best and not much came about. But as God told his servant Joseph, paz seja com tua alma, we also need to see that the trial of our faith won't be forever, it will end. This week we ended our trial with our own action. We said basically «well this week sucked, but next week can be better if we make it better». Instead of looking back and gnashing our teeth at the past, we looked forward. We started making a lot of appointments with members and things started to roll from there to the point where yesterday 3 people told us they wanted to be baptized.  We hadn't even said anything. Paz seja com tua alma... se surportares bem, Deus exaltará no alto. 

Funny experience: There's this huge catholic party going on in the middle of our city. (background the Catholics during the summer just throw a lot of parties in all their cities until the end of summer. It's interesting, but any hoo)  Yesterday, they started it off with a grand processional of this statue going through the city. Our plans took us straight through the festival. It was crazy. I'll send pictures of what they had set up for this thing but as we were walking through just trying to get to the other side, we ran into 1. an investigator that was walking in the parade, and 2. a less active member. At that moment on I thought, well we need to teach the restoration little bit better. 

Élder Fogg

well at least I had shoes....

Tania and Diolinda made it to church

Inspired Continente run: There is a grocery store called Continente, it's like target or Safeway. Well because it was transfer week, we had to buy food during the week because Elder Barton didn't get here until Wednesday. Well, we decided to go to Continente during the morning right before lunch. As walked in, we ran into a member called Paulo Tavares who was there with his family. We talked with them for a while. Then, as we were in the produce aisle, we ran into Carlos who was actually there with Paulo. They were all buying groceries at the same time! Then, we went to the meat section. As we passed by there, we ran into a less active Mariano. Elder Barton has the opportunity to meet all of them at the same time! while buying food! What efficiency! I felt like that part from the Best Two Year «How'd you know to come here? Indigestion. It was inspiration ain't it? Humility, humility is the key to inspiration.  Can I write that down?»

Tania Raposo: She's crazy! But really cool. We have been working with her since I arrived. Before I arrived, the members had little faith in the less actives coming back to church. I don't know why or how aside from the Lord's timing (because it definitely didn't come from me).   She made it to church for the first time in a long time. We had talked with her on Saturday and said we would call. Elder Noad called her in the morning but she didn't answer. I was standing outside waiting for people to come. I had the phone with me when I received a call. IT was from Tania.  She told me «elder I'm on my way!». And she came. The attitudes of the members changed a little.  They thought «well if Tania can come back, any one can come back». Maria de Paz, a member that is very active, started calling her and others and this week for the first time in year Diolinda came to church. We didn't even plan that. Tania showed up late and when she walked in Diolinda walked in too! It was crazy! I was so happy! I felt like jumping up and down celebrating! (but we were in the middle of the sacrament so I decided not to). Now Tania has the goal of going to the Temple this next year! Last week in gospel principles we had a lesson on missionary work.  We talked about how we need to be the examples sometimes keeping the commandments to help others make and keep covenants. She said she had never paid tithing.  We invited her pay tithing. Start now. This week, I saw her with her tithing slip! Inviting people to changes and seeing them make changes in their lives is incredible! It's great seeing the happiness that she has now. I know that when we follow Jesus Christ we are happy.

Pics

Miracle

This week was really rushed. We were helping the other areas this week because it was the last week of the transfer. We did an exchange with the Elders in Ponta Delgada after the District Counsel. It was good helping them. We also had to an interview for the Sisters there as well. The couple missionaries picked us up in their car and took us there. It was great, one of the people didn't show up to be interviewed but the other one passed. They gave us Lazanha afterwards, best interview ever!

Transfers are happening. Elder Noad is leaving and I am receiving Elder Barton. He's a great guy! He started his mission when I was in Amadora, so I did a couple of exchanges with him. Since then he's grown a lot. He's served with Elder Davis (from my MTC group) and he's trained. It's going to be great. He had to wait for his visa and when he was waiting he served in Boise. Now we'll serve together! It's going to be great!

 

Miracle:  We have been working with a less active member called Tania. She has come to church a couple times while I was here. Usually we have to call her until she picks up or a member does. This time no one called her and she showed up on her own. It's incredible seeing the progress people make in the Gospel.

Élder Fogg

Pics

Very sweet moment and a great day!

Well this week was very long. We met with our new mission President, President and Sister Fillmore. They are very good people. I like both of them. They talked with us about how we can have more revelation and how this is OUR mission. That the mission isn't theirs or mine but ours with the Godhead so we need to do the work in the way Christ would do it. Very simple message but it was powerful. Had the opportunity to talk with them personally, expressed their love and thankfulness.

This week was very long because of our friends Luana and Fabio who are the children of a less active Lília. We spent the entire week really just trying to talk with them for a little bit but we never caught them at home. Then we visited their house one more time to do the baptismal interview and it seemed like they weren't home. As the four of us were brainstorming outside their house, Elder Lewis was playing with the mail box. 3 minutes later the door swung wide open and Lília was standing there. I was shocked and scared that she was made at us. We talked a little bit and made an appointment for later that night. We were able to finish teaching them everything before Sunday. President Fillmore did the interview with Elder Lewis and decided to come to the Baptism on Sunday. It was a good service. Sunday was the first time in a long time that Lília went to church and she was able to renew her covenants, the same day her children were able to make that covenant she made a long time ago. It was a very sweet moment and a great day! 

Élder Fogg

Big Miracle

Well Portugal lost. That really sucked for us because it destroyed our night on Saturday. Nobody was at home and everybody was really sad and in shock. I was extremely surprised at how hard everyone was taking it! It was kind of funny because we visited some members that night and in Portuguese you say «tudo bem?» or «is everything good?» and they all responded «no». 

Church was a mess this week. We had a couple investigators at church.  They were all children under the age of 10. The members did miracles and brought these kids.  They are all kids of less actives that have parents that couldn't make it yesterday, but the members pulled through and brought them to church anyway! Big miracle! It was great that all of them came. But, because their parents weren't there, some of them acted a little wild but besides that the members were really happy with our work.

We worked with this older couple here called Familia Oliveira, Bernadino and Maria de Paz. They went to a family home evening with us and gave us dinner. It was really cool to see the fire that they have. Missionaries usually aske for references of friends and stuff, but with them we asked for names of less actives that they knew. We want to reactive a lot of people here, and they really want to help with that. Even at dinner we were talking about missionary work and they talked about there own family and how they needed to become active. It really cool to see how much pure desire they have to help.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY (D&C 101:77,80)

 

Élder Fogg

Pic - President and Sis Tavares

Farewell to President and Sister Tavares

This week was great. Carlos is doing great and progressing well. We are trying to help stop smoking. He wants to. He works crazy hours as a security guard at a milk factory, who knew? So it's really hard to keep in touch with him and give support in this crucial time. We'll continue to work with him and do our best. The Lord has already blessed him. He just needs to overcome his trial of faith.

Patricia is a wife of a member. She smokes but she wants to have an eternal family. We are working with them to stop smoking and be baptized. We had a really funny experience this week on Wednesday. We had a dinner appointment (which is really a miracle in it's own respects here), that fell through which was really sad but we felt that we needed to go to Paulo Tavares to talk with him about his wife Patricia. We dropped everything, (mostly because the member canceled on us) and we went there. When we got there Paulo asked us if we could stay for dinner (talk about following the spirit, one dinner cancelled another gained, what an emotional roller coasters). They made really good chicken BBQ. 

President and Sister Tavares had a farewell conference with us in the Azores on Thursday. It was great seeing them one last time. They have helped so much and will miss them immensely. They have taught me a lot. I hope I can stay in touch with them. The church is true, we have leaders who are inspired by god, I know that President Fillmore is called of God and will do a great job as mission President.

Élder Fogg

The Azores are beautiful.

Well the Azores are beautiful. Holy crap! It's so green! It's amazing! It's like in all those films where people go to those remote islands in the middle of the ocean, that turn out to be magical or something. These islands are magical. I don't know how they work.  I think we are on top of three volcanos or something.  If one of them explodes, we're toast. We better hope that the second coming doesn't come in the next 6 weeks to 5 months because I think I remember hearing «And cities will be swallowed up in the sea» and I think that was talking about these islands. But the people are great here. There aren't that many members here but the people are cool. They talk with an accent. It's like they are talking Portuguese but with a French accent. It's funny. I think I actually understand them better than I do people from the mainland or people from brazil. Those 8 years of French are really paying off now!
 

We have been working with a ton of urgency. We are trying to find someone who can be baptized by the end of the month. We taught a lesson the first day I got here to a man named Carlos. He is a reference from a member. We taught the plan of salvation. He was taking notes and writing down stuff. He was drawing the conclusions before we could say them. I showed him the picture of Christ being baptized and he said he wanted to do that because it looks so pretty. We'll see how that goes.
 

We talked with a family in the road on Friday and said we were going to stop by on Monday. Yesterday, we had a bad day. Nothing much was happening. We turned the corner on a street and I saw a man sitting on the door step. I stopped to talk with him. We talked, we asked if we could enter, and we did. We taught the gospel of Christ to him and testified about the importance of following the example of Christ.  He said they were willing to do that. It wasn't until the end that they told us that we had talked to them the day before and were going to pass by the next day.  The Lord works in mysterious ways.
 

The Azores are elect!
 

Élder Fogg

Pics

Reflections on évora

Reflections on Évora : Évora has been worked in by missionaries for about 30 years straight now. There are really quite a few people who don't know who we are. It's an area where you can learn a lot. Here are a few things I learned:

• Abrahamic test and trials: God is our loving Heavenly Father. He loves us and knows us perfectly. He has the desire that we grow and learn so he created a plan for us. To learn and grow we have to be tried.  To see if we are growing he puts these trials in our lives. We receive a lot of blessings in our lives, temporally and spiritually. At times it seems like those blessings are poured out on us. We have a good work and we feel the spirit often and receive answers to our prays quickly and distinctly. Then it all stops. We lose our work, Heavenly Father seems distant and the path we should be walking seems a lot mistier. In those times that we have trials, Heavenly Father wants to see where we are at. He wants to see if our heart is where our mouth is. We say a lot of times «I know He lives and loves me» but do we mean it. Do our parents only love us when they tell us what to do and when they aren't at our side they some how stop loving us? We can only live by trial and error sometimes. If we are never allowed to err, how will we know for ourselves which path is right to take? Here, there are many members that were baptized and felt God's love. God loved them enough to give them other chances to show their love to him and not just through word but by action (forgiving others who do wrong, being humble in accepting the trials we have, following the counsel of our leaders, etc). It is extremely important that we see with the eternal perspective that our trials are temporary, they pass and will change. We need to see that we love God unconditionally to live with Him forever. To do that, we need to be able to sacrifice everything because of that love.

We are both being transferred. Elder Spees is going to Beja.  I'm going to the Azores. I'll be on an island where there are more cows than people that actually live there. It'll be great.
 

We found out on Thursday night that we would be white washed. We did a blitz on Friday with the Elders from Santo Andre (the other area in our district). They came here and went wild. We have made a lot of appointments for the next Elders. They should continue the work smoothly.
 

It was hard saying good bye. I have seen many times on the mission how the love for an area and people grow as you serve there. When I got here, I was not very excited to be here. I got here and worked my buns off. I can say that I love these people. The members aren't perfect but they are loved by the lord. He is sending people here to build Zion in this city.

Élder Fogg

Shoes

My shoes are beginning to disintegrate

Generally here, we have visitors from the United States that come to church. It's always good when someone visits. It's fun talking to them about where they are from, why they are here, where they served a mission. It was really cool this week because we ran into a missionary that served here 25 years ago. None of the members remembered him (It's great to know that my work will never be in vain *cough* *cough* lol) but he remembered them and the work that he put in here to help them. He talked with us about how it was then. When he served, there was a district in the Alentejo (the middle of evora) and they had 5 missionary companionships when he was here. The town is really small.  I have no idea how they managed to have 5 but they did. Now there is no Alentejo District but Évora is apart of the Sétubal Stake and there is only one companionship here. Interesting differences.

I have been here so long on that my shoes are beginning to disintegrate. There is a giant old hole in one of them and it rained this week. My foot got soaked. It was a very pleasant experience.

We visited a Less-Active who has a couple of kids. Her name is Sonia. She has 3 kids, Marianna 18, Richardo 9 and Leonardo 10. She wants her kids to go to church. They haven't been going because no one has talked with them in a while to see why they haven't been going. We had tried to visit serval times but they were never home. Now we are going to visit a couple more times and this next week we'll try to get them to church.

Élder Fogg

Lisbon and Setúbal this week

We went to Lisbon and Setúbal this week. I had to renew my residency card here in Portugal because I was illegal. Now I am legal again! Woo but that meant that Spees and I had to go to Lisbon. Because Evora is so far away from everything, we left a day before and got back about the same time we left the day before. We also had Zone conference this week in Setúbal and the same thing happened. We had a very broken week. It was hard to make progress but we did our best. 

 

This week in my studies I focused on the What? the Why? and the How? in the missionary lessons (plan of salvation and the Restoration). I was trying to teach simpler. Looking through these lenses at the lessons really brings out the basic doctrines and shows what people really need to know. The gospel is simple and true. 

Élder Fogg

Q&A - with Elder Fogg

I received a couple of letters from home and seeing that there is a little confusion as to what I was doing here on the mission I have decided to do a Question and Answer session. (please remember that this is a joke, based very loosely on questions that may or may not have been received).

Question: Where are you serving? 

Answer: I know it's hard to remember sometimes, sometimes I don't even remember. I am serving in Sião o novo Jerusalém (Zion the new Jerusalem), some people mistakenly think that that's Jackson County Missouri but no. It's actually Lisbon, Portugal.
 

Question: Where is Portugal?

Answer: As Gob Bluth put it from Arrested Development  ''Portugal ... Going to live it up down ol’ South America way, huh, Mikey?'' Contrary to popular belief, Portugal isn't actually a South American country, neither central nor northern American either. They don't even like Americans. It actually is European. Next to Spain.
 

Question: So it's a province of Spain? 

Answer: No, Spain has it's own  government and language. Portugal has a government that is  completely different and a language that Spaniards don't even understand.
 

Question: So they speak Spanish?

Answer: There is a language in this world that is literally called PORTUGUESE. It's actually one of the most spoken languages in the world spanning many continents, cultures and people.
 

Question: ''Are you excited to come home in October''

Answer: OK, wow, I am trying to focus as a missionary on missionary stuff and missionary things being very missionary-y. Gosh. I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations. Let me answer your question with a question, where is Kolob? (I don't know)
 

It was great responding to your questions. If you guys have any other questions that you like to have responded feel free to send them and I'll do (as DJ Khaled would say) another one.
 

Élder Fogg

Pics from Evora