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