I had my first baptism this past week. The baptism Friday was amazing. Monica had been an investigator for 6 years and attended church all of the time with her husband. I got to be a lucky missionary to see it happen. The spirit was really strong and it was amazing. I'll send some pictures.

Other investigators:

Aldofo, is a really old and an amazing black guy. We saw him on the road Saturday afternoon. He had time so we gave him a tour of the church. He already committed to baptism next Sunday and attended church yesterday. He was amazing. We still haven't started with any of the lessons yet, but he is ready.

Clarice is 13 and Rafaela is 9. They have been investigators for two weeks now or so. and finally visited church yesterday. They have also committed to baptism Sunday. So we will see them get baptized. :)

My friends and other friends. I love each and every one of you. I have thought about YOU once already. Trust me. I have. :) Today I want to tell you something that is the most important, the funnest thing I can do here on the mission and I wish I had more time to do it. That is Study The Scriptures!!!

We have one hour to study every day. And that 1 hour is not enough. I don't care if you say you don't have time. Gee, I KNOW you can make time. It doesn't have to be an hour, but please try for at least 20 minutes, and I promise you, if you are studying with your whole mind, 20 minutes won't be enough. I promise with all my heart it will bless your day, your life, your families lives and your friends lives if you can do only that for 20 minutes. It doesn't exactly have to be scriptures either, actually scriptures are my favorite. But Jesus the Christ. If you haven't read that book, please do it sometime soon. Do it for me. I have gotten 45 pages into it, and I don't have time to read any more. At least for a couple months. :) If you don't know, that book was written in the temple by James Talmage. It is practically scripture. I know that it is true and if it was written in the House of the Lord, I bet Jesus the Christ was the real author of that book. It was written in His House. 

I challenge you to pick a topic: the Atonement, Charity, Brotherly Kindness, Chacter of Christ, anything, and study that for a week or a month then move to another topic that interests you. You won't learn anything if it's not something you love, so have fun with it and it will cause miracles to happen in your life. :)

I ask you to do this because I love you. I hope you know that. I would do anything for any of you. As long as it makes you happy. :) 

Happiness is a choice. Choose to be happy every day. Wear that lovely smile everywhere. You made a covenant with our Heavenly Father when you were baptized to be a representative of Jesus Christ. So, I ask you to be a window. A window that people can look through you and See your Savior Jesus Christ. 

Well now that I feel like I'm giving a lecture. Sorry... But It is true.

De Novo, Eu amo vocês. Guardam Jesus Cristo em tuas vidas. Sempre lembrá-Lo. E vâo ser abençoado. Em nome de Jesus Cristo. Amém

I am tired just about every night. I don't exercise much because there is only 30 minutes to get ready and go somewhere, and then get back home. So I can never really move my legs. I find myself flexing my legs and my back all of the time, because they want to do something exhausting, but I really can't. Oh well. I started getting a blister on my heel a couple nights ago because we were walking super fast one night to get back home on time, because the lesson was awesome and we didn't want to leave.  We walked fast and my heel got a little bit of a blister. This morning putting my soccer shoes on hurt it a bit, but it's all good now, I think. 

Elder De Oliveira leaves home in December. Yes, there is a branch in our area that four missionaries are in, and we all live together. We live in the other Elders' area, so we have to walk all the way to our area to start doing anything, and its about a 20 minute walk from our house. The drivers are crazy, but I love it.  Honestly if you are crossing the road, at a cross walk, you don't wait for the cars, they all wait for you. It is so different. So whenever you get to a crosswalk you don't have to stop walking, the cars stop for you. It's actually really cool. They make sidewalks here for three reasons, to plant trees, people to walk of course, and the most important reason for sidewalks here in Portugal, is to park your cars. If they have to run into the correios real quick, or something, they park pretty much in the lane they were driving in, get their stuff and come back out onto the road. They are crazy, but it all works somehow. Also, this town has steep hills, and they park every which way. Places at home where it would be a 5 mph road, here it's about 25 mph. That's why they don't have bikes. If you got into an intersection as fast as a bike does and a car is coming the other way, you're dead. ha. And also, the cobblestone is really slick so bikes wouldn't do anything when it's raining.

Members don't do very much missionary work. Elder De Oliveira hasn't really ever received a referral. But the youth here are better than most youth I see anywhere in Utah. You want someone who will stand up for what they believe in, you come to Portugal. Not to say that no one in Utah is like that, but for the majority its like that. I'd take 15 Portuguese youth over 100 youth in Utah, probably. They are awesome! The weather is very hot during the day. One elder is from Arizona and says it's not bad when we are complaining, but it is hot. One of the members says in September its hotter than in August, so I'm going to die.

P-days, last week we didn't do anything. There isn't much to do in our area. Today we went to an aquarium in Lisboa. It was great. We still need to buy food and stuff for the rest of the week. Since we have two companionships in the house, we switch every other week of who buys food for the week. It's pretty great. We get 160 euros each month. 

Email from Justin on August 25, 2014

The flights here were crazy. The shortest one we had was to Dallas. Not bad. But the over night one to London was ruthless. As I expected, I slept about 4 hours, which actually was great because jet leg wasn't too bad. In Dallas, we met the missionaries returning home from Portugal. One of them knew my companion Elder De Oliveira. He lived in Brazil when he was younger, then has lived here in Portugal for the past 11 years. So he doesn´t know English very well, but he knows a lot. I can talk in English and he will understand me, but it´s hard for me to understand what he says. He doesn`t have vocal cords, so everything is like a whisper. But my understanding is getting better. 

I am serving in Setùbal. Its a great place, every where pretty much has a lot of hills. I can´t walk very far that's flat like at home (ha), but I´m surviving. 

The Atonement is real, but so is Satan.  You can be repented of your sins even if they are “red as scarlet, they can be white as snow”  (Isaiah 1:18).  And the Lord God “will remember their sins no more”  (Jeremiah 31:34).  But Satan will bring them back to your remembrance all of the time. This ! Does Not ! mean you haven’t truly repented. 

Elder Bednar said, “Please remember, the Lord requires you to be clean but not perfect.”  The Holy Ghost operating again in your life is the surest indicator of forgiveness by the Lord because “the spirit of the Lord doth not dwell in unholy temples.”  Once again you feel the spirit in your life, you will know you have truly repented.

I love the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  It is my life.  Without it, I wouldn’t be here right now and I would not be a Justin Lee.  I am very grateful for the Atonement.  It is the most important event that has happened on this earth.

I love Him, and I Love you.  May God be with you wherever you are in life.  He can and will help you, but you have to make the first move.  In the sacred name of my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, amen.

Elder Lee leaves the Provo MTC on Tuesday, August 19, 2014 to fly to Portugal.  He arrives in Lisbon Portugal on August 20 about 6:05 pm.

Justin said in his last letter, "I am excited to be teaching investigators for real and I can't wait to find out what his mission has to offer!"

The following was written by Elder Lee on August 5, 2014:

This week has been quite normal, nothing too exciting, except from last weeks post, on the Character of Christ. Find out what the Character of Christ is. Read through every account of the ministry of Jesus Christ once or twice or more. The more the better. You will come to know how special He really was. You will find flaws in yourself that you need to fix. You will find that everything in this life is about everyone else but yourself. Look into that.