Week 18

hello friends and family!!

Area: São Luís   Companion: Elder Rais

This week was another bitter-sweet week and hopefully i can fit all the good stuff in! sadly, i broke two of my goals that i set for my mission (you will read about them in the sunday summary). just a tad about my week first, the new house is working out great and i love love love it! it really feels like a home because it has painted walls and is way more like a home :) 

this week i would also like to do something special! if there is anything you want to hear more about (investigators, area, companion, etc) or if you have any specific questions for me, send them in an email to my dearest mother and father (lambert22211@msn.com) and they will forward them to me! i want to make sure i keep yall happy and interested.

Also my dearest mother, i thought of some good things for future packages. i would love love love some pepper. they dont have ANY here and i have been dying for some pepper (especially a pepper grinder) and also some rechargable batteries with the charger. and (sorry the list is long) a little cd player (i think i have one in my room) with the efy cds. i forgot to put those on my ipod and i am regretting it very much. send with the rechargable batteries, i can just use those for the player! if its a pain though, dont worry about it. and i will try to send home the flashcards for nat in the middle of this week.

monday-this day not much happened other than the move we did earlier in the day.

tuesday-i did a division with our zone leader (elder Theissen) who is also from washington! i love him alot and we get along really well. it was in our area, so i had the role of being the senior companion again! we had a great day, and we got someone to commit to baptism this next suday! so fernando (recent convert) has two younger sisters (one who shows lots of interest and already has a date, and one that doesnt) and after talking alot to the youngest sister about the importance of baptism with the proper authority, she wants to be baptized! it was so cool because everything finally clicked in her mind and she said yes! also, an interesting thing happened today. we were making contacts in the street in the neighborhood and while i was talking to a guy in the street, three girls were walking past us all giggling and such and one slapped my butt. it was kinda awkward and me and elder thiessen were trying really hard not to laugh because the guys who we were talking to had no idea what was going on. some of the girls here are a little crazy. luckily i have never seen those girls again!

wednesday- we taught Raylson´s mom about baptism today and she wants to be baptized, but she wont get married. she says that she doesnt want to get married because it makes separating more difficult. its so sad that everyone here anticipates separation! i think that anticipating it makes it happen. we also met a guy in the streets who is addicted to smoking and drinking and he asked us to help him. we talked to him about how through baptism he can be washed clean of his sins and he really wanted that. we also challenged him to not drink or smoke until we taught him again on saturday. on the way home, i noticed myself singing `who are you´  by The Who and it made me think of dad alot. it reminded my of his air guitar solos and windmills in the family room while listening to their music :)

thursday-today was just kind of a normal day today! just another great day of serving the Lord :)

friday- this day i hit four months in the mish! its SOO crazy that i already am 1/6 of the way through. its passing way too fast! probably the best part though of this 1/6 mark is that i got to open a new toothbrush! i noticed that i had six, so i can use a new one every 4 months! also another great part of my day was when a super drunk woman stopped elder rais and asked him about our church. we introduced ourselves and when he shook her had, she wouldnt let go and started to kiss his hand - it was super funny and i started laughing really hard. i dont think she was very interested in our church...

saturday-we contacted a member reference, and i think they are golden! they are a family with a mother and father (MARRIED!!!!) and a son. we taught the plan of salvation and they really loved it and accepted dates to be baptized on the 17th! it would be soooo cool to baptize a family :) also we bumped into the daughter of a woman we are teaching and she is a super snake (a girl who chases missionaries). she was sad when we told her that we couldnt teach her without her mother there and as i walked away she said ``você é lindo´´ which means, you are beautiful, so that was an interesting part of my day! also i started to feel really sick right before bed and ended up throwing up in the toilet. i discovered that it is really gross to throw up beans, rice, noodles, ground beef, bananas, and coke.

sunday-so this day will take a while to talk about... i can also tell you guys about it because i am practically all better now! so i ended up throwing up 12 times during the night, so i didnt really get much sleep. we called the mission presidents wife (sister dias) because she is the nurse of us all. she said that i should go to the hospital. i was really bummed because me and elder rais had alot of investigators we were going to bring to church this week, but i couldnt really walk anywhere. elder rais stayed with elder morris and elder iverson took me to the hospital. everyone was looking at me funny because i looked dead, and i was walking around with a bunch of plastic bags in case i needed to throw up again. the hospital was an interesting experience! first i had to take a pee test, then broke the lid trying to put it back on, so that was kid of gross, then i got hooked up to a bunch of IV´s! first they gave me something to make me not throw up, which was ironic because i threw up shortly after! good thing i had my bags :) next, the people said the medicine would hurt alot and there was others in the room who were taking the same stuff so i wasnt really sure what i was gettting myself into because some of the people in the room were screaming and crying. so they stuck me and told me to prepare myself and i was oh so prepared... it was wierd because i didnt feel a thing! i just curled up in my chair and went to sleep while i was filled with three bags of something. after i was done, elder iverson and i went straight to the church which was kind of awkward because church was just getting out and i was in basketball shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals, but elder iverson got back in time for his baptisms. this night we had two baptisms; sinara and silmara, fernando´s sisters. it was oh so great and it made my sufferiing worth it :) we returned home and i went right to bed! so the two goals that i broke for my mission where to never go to the hospital, and never miss a day of work.

monday- it was nice to relax today, i feel better and we just relaxed, bought groceries and now I'm sending this! we will see how the work is tonight! 

i love you all and wish you all the best! i know this church is true, and serving this mission has been the best thing ever for me! i know every part of me has grown (spiritually, mentally, and all kinds of -ally´s). I'm so excited for all my buddies who have, are, and will serve missions!!

com amor,

-Elder Lambert!

 so here are two more attachments of pictures of our house! its actually really nice! notice how there are bars over all the doors and windows :) people will do anything to break into the homes of americans. also there was one in the other email of sinara and silmara´s baptism! 

Week 16: the lost email

olá friends and family once again from the beautiful brasil!

Area: São Luís     Companion: Elder Rais

this was another great week in the mish (i think i say that every week). so many wonderful events and miracles happened!

monday-we just kinda lounged around for pday and it was way nice just to relax and play some games. later when we went out to work, we did splits and i went with elder morris. it was really fun/scary because i was playing the role of the senior companion and planning everything, and i basically taught all the lessons! it really showed how much my portuguese has been improving without me realizing it. we thought that we would be able to move today, but it will be next monday.

tuesday- we woke up at three AM to take my companion and elder iverson to the bus station because they needed to travel to Teresina for a leadership training. all the leaders and seniors went so it was all the juniors left to run the town :) we ended up working in a threesome for two days because there was a single left in an area close to mine so he worked with us. this day we spent half the time in my area, and half the time in elder morris´ area. again i was kinda like the senior companion and it was way fun. while walking to elder morris´area, a huge truck went really fast past us and hit a pothole and sprayed horse poop all over my pánts, bag, and shirt. it was super super super gross and i smelled horrible, but it was really funny :) everyone i passed on the way to the house looked at me really funny and would laugh. we finished the day working in elder M´s area. 

wednesday- this morning we traveled to the other elders area that was with us. his area is HUGE and we had to take buses everywhere and walk a ton. i came back home a poor man... in a whole days work, we only taught 3 lessons in 8 hours...

thursday-elder rais and iverson returned and we traveled back to our house. we talked about baptism with alot of people and sunday looked promising to have lots of success. Valbert (recent convert) is so cool. i love him SO much! he helps us a ton and he gave me a ring to remember him by :) i also bought this awesome hamburger with meat, bread, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, eggs, cheese, cucumbers, and ham. it was sooo good until about 30 minutes later when i had to spend the night in the bathroom. im still thinking it was a worthy sacrifice though. 

friday- me and elder rais changed our companion study plan and starting this day with me teaching entire lessons to him. i taught the restauration (i cant spell that in english any more, im used to restauração). it was good and i think it will help alot to pratice this way. Raylson is having second thoughts about his baptism and im not sure if it will work out this sunday. i know there is something thats bothering him, or something that somebody said to him, but he wont tell us... also, i woke up early this morning and cleaned the sink and all the dishes for everyone :) because we havent had water for forever, everything was about 2 weeks old in there and the drain had clogged so just nasty water was sitting in it. it was supér gross, but it looks so good now.

saturday-TODAY WAS PERFECT! i woke up and went out to a pay phone close by and did a surprise call to my parents to set up a time to skype later this night for mothers day. it was midnight in their time and dad answered the phone all tired and i asked if it was david wilcox lambert, and he said yessss. i told him i was making the call from brasil and then he realized who it was :) later he said he thought it was a telemarketer and almost hung up haha. it was so cool hearing your voice again! i got to skype them! whooooo. everything was perfect perfect perfect, except i couldnt see them... but it was still perfect! i talked all about my mission and area and experiences and everything! it was so fun hearing all their voices and at least they could see me! at the end i started sharing my testimony of this church and how i know its true and how great this mission has been for me and i started crying. I'm such a softy :) ahhh i love this church and my family SO much! it was kinda sad because everyone was talking about how they talked for an hour or more, but i just did for the 40 minutes (we spent about 15 minutes with technical difficulties). i wanted to talk more, but it was the rules! my wife will be super pretty because i kept the hardest rule in the mission - so if there is a girl out there who just got alot prettier just a few days ago, thank me when we get married :)

the only bad thing is that we found out kids have started spreading a bunch of lies about our church to all the kids and friends and so some people are getting scared out of baptism. its so frustrating to try to clear up all the things about demons and witches and garbage. 

sunday- was another perfect day FULL of miracles! mothers day killed all of our investigators going to church, so we only had 1 show up. after church i had the best meal of my life i think. it was perfect! (dave you would be jealous). we had lasagna, pasta, alfredo pasta, torta (meat pie), chicken, beans, rice, steak, and 7 liters of soda :) i just mixed everything together and ate until i was dead and drank until i was deader and then she made united states cake! then i was the deadest... it was PERFECT! we then had to walk really fast to our area because we were running late and there was a possibility of a baptism. we found fernando and he said he wants to be baptized! and better yet, he chose ME to baptize him! this will be my fourth, but my first with me doing the baptism! we told him to be at the church at 7. we then had to go to someones house who was far away for elder rais to call his family because he couldnt do it the day before because his family was traveling. we hurried over there and he talked and loved it. it was so cool to see how happy he was! after he finished we had only an hour to get to our house, for me to get all my stuff, and for us to get to the chapel. we ran from our area to our house and we quickly got everything ready and then we quickly ran to the chapel. there was a ton of other stuff that happened, but i dont have time to type it. we got to the chapel at 6:55 and waited for him to arrive. we waited until 8:50 and decided we needed to do something. we had been praying this whole time for a miracle. we called a neighbor to check on him and she said that his grandma wouldnt let him go alone and so he hadnt been able to leave. luckily our buddy in the ward showed up on his motorcycle and we told him the story and he went and picked him up! we started the baptism at about 9:30 and it was perfect :) it was such a cool experience baptising him and he loved it. he was crying after it and said that he felt so good :) he is 14 and has already made some friends in the church through soccer. the Lord is definitely with us in this work.

monday-today i woke up and washed all my clothes by hand, cleaned the bathroom, and the sink! i felt so productive and i shined elder iverson's shoes because they were dirty and he doesnt have a shining kit. i am trying to serve as much as i can because i know i will recieve alot of blessings as i serve and work. we made pancakes with syrup which was super good! gahh i love it. i found a tiny store in our area that has a hammock so i bought one! i found a really cool one for a good price! i will start sleeping in it now :) 

I sent some big pictures again, so hopefully they will come through! one the baptism, and my area

this week was super great and i know this church is true! 

Week 17

Area: São Luís      Companion: Elder Rais

So you said that you didnt get my email last week huh? strange.... i will resend it. i did send one and we were able to move houses this week! this week was a very different week that was way fun with both bitter and sweet moments. good work on your training for ragnar mom! you are probably in better shape than i am right now! i can walk for forever, but I'm not so sure about running. i miss playing sports SO much! i have been wanting to play sports so bad lately.  i have not recieved the other packages yet, but i did get some mail this week! i got some from friends and nats letter and some mission ties! thanks everybody!!! and i will make 4 months here in 5 days! super wierd!! its gone by so so so fast and i think it will only get faster. 

monday- after this day of teaching, we were pretty sure that we were going to have four baptisms the following sunday. renato, and three brothers (caio, rodrigo, and alexandre). It was super cool teaching the three brothers because we got super close to them and can joke with them a bunch. they are 11, 12, and 13. after the lesson we were arm wrestling them and all sorts of stuff. it was way fun. 

tuesday- for companionship study today i taught the gospel of jesus christ (faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost, and enduring to the end). this one went pretty well! today we were supposed to teach at three different houses with kids, but the kids all showed up at the first lesson in one house and traveled with us to every house. its so cool here how the kids want to learn as much as they can and they love us too. i know im serving in a golden area and i am loving it oh so much. 

wednesday- today we worked in a new area and it was super super hot and nobody was there! it was really hard because i felt kinda sick, and there was literally nobody to talk to, but oh well, life goes on. we started teaching fernando´s cousin (fernando was baptized last week) and found out he smokes marajuana! he is only 14 too so we have some work to do. it was way funny though because his grandpa came in with a super old violin and started playing random songs that were super cool. we taught a recent convert named wellington who is in some financial trouble right now and he was really thankful to have somebody to talk to. after we are all done sorting out our house and stuff, we are going to help him cement his walls and paint them. 

thursday- we had zone conference! this means we got to see our president! i love president dias so much and its so cool to see him every once in a while! we recieved a bunch of training and did all sorts of random stuff. i bore my testimony because i am new in the field and people said that my portuguese was really good! that was a good confidence booster :) also we got this medicine to kill the worms in our stomach that are always growing here and found out that i was supposed to have been given some in the CTM, but i never was. hopefully thats not a problem! me and elder rais are leading our zone in baptisms which is cool! he reported everyone's while he was there. also, arenato´s mom said that she doesn't want him to be baptized any more :(

friuday- we had a big family night activity planned at the church which was going to be super cool and we brought 7 youth with us! BUT, when we got there, only the other set of missionaries was there. there has been a bus strike going on, so nobody went because they didnt want to walk. it was kind of stressful, but we just turned it into a cool lesson about the Book of Mormon. also, a girl who went got permission from her mom to go, but her dad called while she was there and said he didnt want her there and told her he would beat her when she got home. it was really scary and a tough situation, but luckily nothing bad ended up happening!

saturday- we made pancakes today yum yum :) and met a new guy named Dimas. he is really cool and seems like he has some promise! i started the new testament in the bible today during personal study and will read a bit every day. also, the three brothers got the permission signatuare to be baptized!!

sunday- the morning was great! we got 11 investigators to church including a family! it was so so great and they all loved it! after church we had a great lunch and worked to get ready for our baptisms this night. only two of the brothers showed up to be baptized because one was sick apparently, but we had 2 baptisms which was awesome! caio and alexandre both picked me to baptize athem! i love it so much and i know the lord is blessing me so much in my work and that everything is done by him. 

monday-today was crazy! we woke up at 5:30 to start prepping our house to move! yay!!! we loaded up this truck and moved to our new house (i attached a photo of the truck) and it was so crazy because we were riding in the back to make sure everything was secure and the roads here are so bumpy! stuff was flying everywhere. dad would be proud of me because i organized everything in the truck and made it fit. it was like a big game of tetris and there was tons of room when i finished! we unloaded everything and went back to our old house to clean it. all the floors here are concrete or tile so you just throw water on the ground and squeegy (no idea how to spell that) it out. now i am sending this email! 

this week was so great and i love the work i am doing here. i keep y'all in my thoughts and prayers throughout every day! i love you all!

com amor,

Elder Lambert

Skyping on Mother's Day

Week 15

olá from....... SÃO LUÍS STILL!!!!

Area: sao luis,       companion: elder Rais

So to begin, i survived the transfer, so i am still here and still with my companion, but one of the guys left (elder rudolphi) and we recieved another american (elder morris). this week has been kind of crazy as you are about to hear, and regarding mothers day, i will try to skype i think saturday night at 7 here, which is 12 in hawaii or whatever? i hope that works out because thats what i am doing! 

monday-so today we had transfers, which i mentioned about above. i was willing to go anywhere, but i wanted to stay just because we have alot of people close to baptism. we recieved elder morris who has 8 months in the mission. sadly one of our ZL´s left, elder barros :( hopefully i will see him again some other place. later me and elder rais set a baptismal date for the niece of Edilberto. she had already gone to church twice with him, but was never really interested in talking with us. she is 12 years old and we decided to ask her if she wanted to be baptized and she said that she would like to! we taught her some more and set a date for her for saturday.

tuesday-we set a date with a kid named fernando who both me and elder rais really really like. he is really quiet, but he loves talking with us and recieving our lessons. he went to church with us the last sunday and we set a date for the 12th. it was cool because we had a baptismal date with his friend, but his friend doesnt want to be baptized anymore. fernando told us all this and said that he still wants to! the church had an awesome BBQ activity with soccer at it that we were able to get three investigators to. it was so awesome :) 

wednesday-we taught 8 lessons today which was great, but we ran into snakes (a term in the mission for girls who flirt with missionaries) and its kind of annoying. they are 11 and 13 and started trying to talk to us and follow us around. hopefully they will never find us again - and IT RAINED! it went 5 days without raining and was getting really hot, and we wre running out of our rain water to do everything with. i forgot to mention, but our water disappeared again... 

thursday-we recommited a boy named raylson to baptism because he didnt go to church enough times to get his date. we reset it for the 12th. we were also teaching a new kid named douglas and the lesson was going great until his grandpa came in. he started yelling at us and telling us that he wanted us to leave that second. he said that he doesnt want us in his house and only the presence of god...

friday-this morning we went house searching because we have been without water for a long time and we cant wash anything, including ourselves, and we cant make food. we searched for a very long time and couldnt find anything. we taught fernando again and he invited his friends to hear us and his sisters. it was so cool because we got some references and they were all participating and we were making them laugh and everything. it was really great :) also fernando said the closing prayer and thanked god that we could come bring the truth to him and he asked in his prayer for the grandpa of douglas to realize that we bring the words of god into his house. it was so cool! also, a miracle happened. me and elder rais found a house before coming home and so did elder iverson and morris! now we have two options!

saturday-we went proselyting in a new neighborhood today that we found and its a really good one! we taught some lessons and got some contacts. again, kids keep inviting their friends to lessons so we get alot of contacts. also, what makes me really happy is that when we are walking in the streets, all the kids love talking with us and joking and walking around with us. its really cool because we are getting to know so many people and they are all really starting to love us. its the coolest thing ever

sunday-probably one of the craziest morning of my life. we walked to our area to bring kids to church with us and ended up getting 9 kids! it was so great, but it was so hard to keep them all together getting to the church and not running off or getting lost. we walked into the chapel with a flock of children and it was super awesome. we ended up getting 13 investigators to church this day! we also had the baptism of valbert this day! it was soooo awesome and he was super happy before and after. it was a great experience. the owners of our house complex emptied the bucket that catches rain water so now we have absolutely no water. it kinda stinks... i ate dry ramen for dinner.

its cool though because everyone in our zone and district who we have talked to have said that they would have gone home if they were me. they wouldnt have been able to deal with this in their first area, but i love it :) it really stinks, buts its so much fun at the same time! this is the kind of mission i wanted to serve.

i think we will be able to move into a house next monday. hopefully we will live until then! im reallly excited to be able to call home this saturday!! again i hope that everyone is doing well! the pictures that i attached should be of us playing soccer and the baptism of valbert

Week 14

olá friends and family!!

area: São Luís    companion: Elder Rais

This was a very interesting week filled with good and bad news. i still have not figured out anything for the mother's day phone call, but i will continue trying. i hope everyone is still doing well and it was great recieving emails from friends and family :) some good news is that our water came back on kind of this week! we all could take showers with the water that dripped from the shower head. it wasnt strong, but it was water! 

tuesday-i taught the class at district meeting and it was pretty good i thought. it was about our purpose on earth. i definitely need to work on my portuguese, but it is coming along! me and elder rais did a fast for one of our investigators (Tássia) because her boyfriend was refusing to leave the house. if he wouldnt leave, she couldnt be baptized... we found out from the mother of Augusto that he has some problems in his life right now, so we are trying really hard to teach him and help him out. also, valbert went to seminary! we talked to him the next day and he loved it!

wednesday-OFFICIALLY 3 MONTHS IN THE MISSION! its soooo weird to think that i am already 1/8 into my mission. its going by so fast! we taught 7 lessons which was good and we had a cool experience with valbert. a requirement for baptism is to partake of the sacrament 2 times and he went this last sunday, so elder rais and i were thinking that we could get him to church again and baptize him after. we were planning to challenge him to be baptized that next sunday, and when we walked in, his mom told us that he really wants to be baptized! it was sooo cool and he loves us so much. he is the coolest guy ever. the bad news for today was while teaching edilberto, we discovered he is not married... he was super ready to be baptized on saturday but he told us he wasnt officially married... our very first visit with him 4 weeks ago he said he was married. so he wont be able to be baptized for at least a month now. it takes a while to get a marriage license :( we will see what happens with him. 

thursday-today we had divisions and i was with elder barros. i love him soooo much. he's super funny and we get along so well. we sang all day while we were walking around. he is in some of the pictures i am attaching

friday- we made pancakes and used the syrup!!! it was SOOOO good! everyone loved it. i never knew i would miss syrup until i didnt have it, but that was a perfect thing to send me :) thanks sooo much! me and elder barros made everything for the people in our little house. it was a very good morning :) today while teaching tássia she told us about all these hard decisions shes been making with her tough situation and she will be able to be baptized! this night elder rais was pretty sick so we returned a bit early to clean and so he could rest.

saturday-today was a longggg day of walking. we had to walk an hour to the bishops house for lunch, an hour to the church afterwards to fill up the baptismal font with water, an hour and a half to our area (which we only had an hour to work in) then an hour and a half back to the church for the baptism and then 30 minutes back to our house at night. it was crazy! in the hour that we had in our area we were able to get tássia ready for baptism and run to every investigators house and tell them that we would pick them up for church. it was exhausting, but the day ended perfectly with a baptism. it was so so great and tássia was talking about how good she felt afterwards. she has really changed her life around and i am so so happy for her. 

sunday-this was a crazy day too. in the morning we went to get our investigators for church. we got valbert and rauson and they said they would wait while we got others. we got the others and came back and valbert and rauson were gone! the sister of rauson said that they already left for the church. that was kinda wierd, so we went to church and they werent there! it was so sad because valbert needed to go so he could be baptized that day... we figured out later that night that they tried to find us and didnt wait and we ended up going to church without them :( it was way sad, but valbert will be baptized next sunday. augusto also was so excited to go to church with us, but when we went to his house in the morning, he said that he got called in to work that morning. i was super bummed, but when we talked to his mother later that night because she saw us and called us over, she said that he left with his friends in the morning to go drink. we were pretty sad because he lied to us, but we are going to try super hard to fix his problems.

monday-today was sooo good again! we played sooccer at the church again with a bunch of brazilians and some missionaries and it was awesome. i scored four goals this time! i think that i have a picture of this too. i will go get my haircut, and later tonight i will find out who is getting transfered! i kinda want to stay because we started this area from nothing and we have some people to baptize! but, i will go where the lord wants me to go :) 

i want to start including something i have learned from being in brazil every week. here are some of the things so far: 

the biggest stereo speakers in the US are babies here - they are WAY bigger here

you have to put your TP in a bag because it clogs the pipes

water is never a promise

girls like to follow american boys

if you are american, everyone will ask you what time it is so they can hear you speak, even when they have watches

you drink more coca-cola than water

to find all the bugs in the house, leave a crumb on the floor for 2 minutes

all the locks you have to put the keys in upside down. weird.

the pictures that i have are us at soccer, tássia´s baptism, me, elder rais, elder iverson, and elder barros, and elder barros making pancakes!

i love you all and hope everything continues to go well!

-Elder Lambert

Lucky Week 13

hello friends and family!

Area-São Luis    Companion-Elder Rais

 

so to answer all your questions mother:

the president does know that we are without water and thats why we have permission to look for another house. but, the water is coming on and off now as i will tell in a bit, so we arent quite sure what to do now. the owner of the complex set up a giant bucket to catch rain water off the roof, so thats what we have been using for washing clothes, dishes, and showering :) we buy the big blue jugs for drinking water though. my shoes are working out great so far, but ive only been here for 3 weeks, so i will keep you posted. but they are comfortable! Elder rais does help me with portuguese, but i think i will ask for more help. he likes to talk alot during the lessons and i want to try to teach a bit more. i can try to send the notecards home for nat, i havent really figured out the mail service yet... i know we get to call on mothers day, but im not sure exactly how it works. we get to skype if we have access to it, but we arent sure if any place has webcams around here. we will have to figure it all out. 

last monday: we got permission to play soccer! we walked all the way to the church and waited for the youth from our ward to show up and play with us but after 45 minutes we left. on our way back we saw them coming, so we turned around, but we could only play for 20 minutes because we had to get back to leave to teach for the rest of the day. two investigators (tássia and valbert) recieved answers about the book of mormon and both said that it was true! it was such a cool experience to see that they recieved answers because of their faith in prayer and asking.

tuesday: we made a very tasty lunch ourselves this day. we made sandwiches with lots and lots of delicious cooked onions. i think i could eat onions as a meal. also, OUR WATER CAME BACK! i had my first real shower in a very long time. it was like heaven.

wednesday: our water disappeared again in the morning :( also, this day was kind of rough for teaching lessons because we found out alot of problems with our investigators. Augusto wont stop drinking coffee for baptism, and edilberto is starting to have family problems because he wants them to listen to us, but they dont want to, and many others. BUT in a way it is kinda good because we know what we need to teach now, and its better to have these things now than right before baptism. we still havent been able to teach augusto again, but we will try today and commit him to stoppíng again.

thursday: we had water again! i found a green nature valley granola bar in my backpack, so i took it out with me to eat as a snack. i discovered that having one of those made me really miss skiing with dad. it was a funny moment, but it made me think of all the times we would ski together and we would both always have those in our pockets and eat them on the chair lift :)

friday: today i received letters!! i got letters from you guys, the wedding invitation for allison, and one from rachel! it was so good to hear from everybody and thanks so much for writing. i will try to respond when i have time. our water left again... we found a new investigator named carlos who seems way good. we were supposed to teach a boy named gladeson, but only his dad was there and we ended up teaching him. he was very receptive and we are going back tonight. I'm excited to see if he read and prayed about the book of mormon. he seemed very sincere when he told us he would. we also had to walk to the church from our area for a missionary conference with the bishop. it is suchhhhh a long walk. also it went wayyy long so we got home late :/

saturday: Tássia is progressing so well! her baptism date is this saturday and I'm almost positive it will happen. we have talked about it alot and she is excited. we taught her about the word of wisdom, and she told us she stopped selling alcohol because she doesnt want to have it in her house or to sell it. she never drinks, but she just wanted it gone. she is so cool. edilberto is an almost guaranteed baptism for this satuday too. after our lesson with him, he fed us some WAY good pizza and sandwiches. i love him so much :) also, i woman named domingas said she recieved an answer about our church and knows that it is true. the story she told was way cool. 

sunday: we walked all the way to our area before church hoping that more investigators would come if we picked them up. Valbert and Rauson could come, but none more :( i am really excited about valbert because he said that he really enjoyed church and that he will go this next week too. i think he is pretty promising for baptism. next week i think we will have more. there were alot of complications with this week. i got pretty frustrated with the language this day because at a recent convert's house, their whole family would laugh whenever i spoke and said that they couldn't undertand me. they kept talking really fast on purpose and would laugh when i wouldn't understand them. it was funny and i was laughing and having a good time with them, but it was also pretty hard. i feel like i should be able to understand a bit more by now, but i feel like i still have the same comprehension level as when i left. i know i shouldn't be getting discouraged, and i dont want to, but its tough. i will keep trying though and always have a smile on my face :) 

monday: TODAY WAS THE BEST EVER! ahhhh, today has been wonderful. we got permission to play soccer again, but this time in the morning. we started at 8 at the church and played for a while. there were alot of people there and another set of missionaries who i really like. it was so fun playing with all the brasileiros and i scored 2 goals too! its fun because its a small concrete soccer field and we play barefoot. it took a while to get used to, but i really like it. i have pictures, but for some reason they wont load...  these computers are frustrating. after soccer we went to a little market place were they have a bunch of tents. it was fun looking around and i bought a really cool knife (i know you will be so happy with me mother)  after that, we went to a lady´s house who we call grandma and had lunch and watched church movies. it was so fun and relaxing. we will go buy groceries after this and then go teach for the night. i love pday :)

i hope everything is going well with everybody! i will keep everyone in my prayers, and please pray for me too :) i love what im doing and im so excited for friends and family who have/or will do the same thing. its such a great work and privilege. may the lord be with yall :) i will try to upload pitures in another email

com amor,

Elder Derek Lambert

Week 12: You Can Make the Pathway Bright

Hello my friends and family! 

Companion: Elder Rais    Area: São Luis

Once again, another great week in the mission. some updates on some events around here. we are still without water :) we had it for half of one day, but then it went away again. we are looking for a new house but it is very difficult here. we finally found one, but it is an extra 15 minutes from our area so our walk would be about 45+ to get there. also we wouldnt be able to move in for a month. we are still praying for a miracle. also, i have started cooking up a storm in our tiny little kitchen :) every morning i have been cooking eggs and hamburger meat and making different juices. i will start buying better stuff for dinner today so i can eat something other than ramen. 

Monday-for this P-day we got permission to head into the more cityish area and go to  a shopping mall! after a couple bus rides and some time we made it. it felt sooo weird to be inside a place like that after not seeing anything close to it for almost 3 months. we just looked around and we ate lunch at... SUBWAY!!! it was sooooo delicious and i miss the subway at BYU oh so much. it was a little taste of america once again. also i am learning to like alot more things on my sandwiches. after returning home, we got ready and headed out to teach for the rest of the night. we contacted someone who was a referral and the lesson was really cool! it was a woman named fatima and a man named fransisco. before leaving, she shared with us that before we came she was praying for someone to help her find the right path to go in life. 

tuesday-we had another distrct meeting which went well. later, while we were teaching, we stopped by the house of tássia. when we got there, she said we couldnt teach her because she could only talk for a couple minutes. she said that her and the guy she was living with got in a huge fight and are separating. she said he did some really bad things and said some bad things and she wants to separate. she told us that she wants to follow christ in her life and start her life over. it is kind of a bittersweet moment because its sad that they are separating, but i know she is gaining such a greater and more loving family through the church than with the guy she was living with. We also challenged a kid named daniel to baptism if he recieves and answer about the book of mormon and he said yes!

wednesday-we had 8 people accept baptismal dates today! it was sooo awesome! we taught about the restoration and the book of mornon. like daniel we promised that if they read and pray, they will recieve an answer that it is true. they all accepted this challenge and said they would be baptized on the condition that they recieve an answer. one of the kids who accepted is named Augusto. later we were walking through the streets and he was with all his friends and he was talking to them about our church and how he will get baptized if he recieves an answer. its so cool! we got down some addresses. We also bumped into Tássia in the street andshe told us she still wants to be baptized. it was nice :)

thursday-we got to have interviews with the president of our mission!!! predisent Dias is super cool and it was so much fun talking with him again. while he was interviewing me, he looked through my planner and said that he has already interviewed 70% of the mission and me and elder rais were the first ones to have our planners organized correctly. he also said that following the simple steps that seem silly sometimes allows miracles to happen. i have no doubt about this because i am experiencing miracles every day! we also did alot, alot, and alot of walking. first, we had to walk an hour to lunch, then an hour to our interviews, and then 2 hours to our area :) then we could start teaching. we got two more baptismal dates similar to the others. Also, we taught Edilberto about the importance of reading and praying about the book of mormon because he has been strugglig a little with this. he said he would and also we were able to advance his baptismal date so its sooner! one of the coolest things was that both edilberto and tássia both told us that they had already stopped drinking coffee because while they were at church they heard the bishop mention that in his talk. i can tell both these people really want baptism and are willing to make the sacrifices for it. Tássia also shared with us that she can feel something so strong whenever we teach her and when we went to church. we explained to her about the spirit and she said that she has never felt something like it in any other church  And, we bumped into a kid named Rielson who we taught the night before and he told us that he prayed about the book of mormon and knows that it is true :) AND edilberto cooked pizza for us when we taught him :) pretty much it was a great day!

Friday-we taught two more teenage boys and got two more baptismal dates marked! its great because all these teenage boys we have been teaching know each other. im hoping they will all grow together and help each other.

saturday-today we followed up on alot of our challenges to read and pray about the book of mormon. we had 4 people share their experience and they all know the book of mormon is true! things are really starting to get exciting now with our work :) also, we started our fast after lunch which is a little more difficult because we sweat alot and walk alot so its kinda nice to have food, but i was so excited to fast because i had so much to fast for.

sunday-we went to church today and while walking, i randomly stopped sweating and im guessing its because my body ran out of water - it was kinda wierd. we had 5 investigators come to church today. it was really good, but i'm hoping for more. At night, more people we met with said that they had recienved answers that the book of mormon is true as well. it makes me so happy :) also, while teaching someone at night the man offered us shrimp. my companion is allergic so he didnt take any, and i have never had any before so i was a little nervous, but i am here to try new things. it was weird seeing its eyes looking right at me and i ripped its head off... i ate two and thanked them very much and then the woman left and came back with a plate of 15! she told me they were better with lemon so she prepared more for me! they were pretty good, but not my favorite. Dad, you should be proud of me. we can eat chrimp together when i get home.

monday-i woke up early today to start cleaning so we could finish all our studying and start p-day on time. im super excited for today because we got permission to play soccer with the young men in the ward! it will be soo fun and i know i will get destroyed by all the brazileiros. 

now time to answer your questions! my companion does speak english. in fact, his english is better than my portuguese... we are sleeping in beds because its the cooler season right now and rains super hard all the time. i could buy a hammock and sleep inside though because all the walls have special hooks for hammocks in them. we get mail every month or so i think. i think for transfers when the president comes he brings it. and my arm wasnt too burned, it was half tanned :) its kinda just turned into a tan now. i wear the sunscrean on really hot days. and thanks for the package!! i got it at my interviews! the snacks are oh so good and the hangman thing is really fun :) i have already given out two of the bracelets to some kids and they love them. that was a good idea. i wore the tie to church and the little metal things dad gave me are way fun. where did he get those? i also received one mission ties letter, but i dont remember when it was sent. i got one from G+G Lambert. the pictures of the baby were soooo cute! im so glad that everything went well and that i have a nephew! its wierd to think that he will be anne´s age when i get home...

i love all of you soooo much and thank you for the support and prayers! até mais!

oh, and the picture loader was being stupid so i only got two loaded up....

com amor,

Elder Lambert

Week 11: Sao Luis

Hello friends and family!

Area-São Luis    Companion-Elder Rais

So i am trying to upload pictures, but these computers here are super super bad, so i dont think i can upload many (or any, we shall see) This was yet another great week in the mission field! just some random happenings... we have been without water since last saturday or sunday i believe. going over a week has been kind of difficult needing to shower and wash clothes and such. every morning we have walked about 15 minutes to a lady´s house who is in our ward and we fill up buckets and carry them back for the day. this water is used mainly for showering and flushing the toilets :) More about my area: my area takes about 30 min.of walking to get to and from our house and it is some really nice houses at the beginning where nobody is outside so we dont have anyone to talk to, then goes into the ghetto style stuff. at night we have to be really careful of which streets we go down. the area is humongous and we do lots and lots and LOTS of walking everyday, but hey, its good for you :) lunches here have been pretty darn good so far! there have just been a couple where i have gone away a bit hungry because they didnt have much. but on the other hand, some have been absolutely amazing! the portuguese is tough. its still really hard for me to understand much of what people are saying. i can talk pretty well, but because i cant understand i cant respond to questions very well. i have been speaking a little more in lessons, but not too much. this week i will start talking more. the package that i got at the beginning has been soooo nice :) its fun to munch on some american candy while i study, so thanks so much! now about my week:

monday-monday was pretty good. the thing that set it apart was that we almost got robbed! i guess you can say that makes it pretty interesting :) a drunk guy came out of his house and told us to stop because he had a quick question. when he got closer he asked if we had any money and we said no because we are missionaries. we started to walk away and he started to follow us and was yelling asking if we were scared. it was kind of weird, but we got away :)

tuesday-i had my first district meeting! haha it wasnt anything too exciting,  but it was interesting. we just had some thoughts and talked about investigators and had some more training etc...

wednesday-me and elder rais had a cool spiritual experience this night. we had been teaching an investigator who has been progressing way fast. his name is ediberto (the one who went to conference). he was supposed to be out of town for a week and we were kind of bummed because we wanted to talk to him about baptism. we got the feeling that we should stop by his house anyways on our way home, so we did! it turned out he didnt leave because he was sick, but our cell phone doesnt work so there was no way that he could contact us about it. it was a way good lesson and he asked for two more books of mormon so he can tall some of his friends about it :) way cool huh? 

thursday-we challenged ediberto to baptism and he said yes! it was cool because i did the challenge. he wants to learn alot more so the earliest date we could set with him was april 11. hopefully as he gets an answer about our church he will want to get baptized a little sooner. 

friday-This was an amazing day because previously alot of our lessons had been falling through and such, but this day we taught three lessons with a member with us, 3 other lessons, and got 10 new investigators! this will help us alot because nobody has done work in our area before, so we started with 0 people when we got here... also we taught a woman named Tássia and it was such a spiritual lesson and we challenged her to baptism and she said yes! i know she knows that what we taught her is true. however, she is unmarried and living with someone so we taught her about the importance of marriage. she really wants to be married but her guy doesnt. she said she will talk with him about and we will check up with her to see how it went tomorrow! i hope he said yes! it takes exactly 30 days to do all the licensing things, so i hope we can get to work so she can be baptized soon.

saturday-very cool things happened this day. a woman named Mayara got married today! she was someone who the elders had been teaching for a while and the day finally came where she could get married. she was sooo excited and so were they. her baptism is set for the next day. she was living with a guy who used to be a member and he is reactivating too. it was so cool to see how big of an influence missionary work can be.

sunday-we had to leave super early today for church because mayara had her baptism at 7. the church is about a 30 minute walk from our house. im so happy for her because she came such a long way :) church was good but i got way tired because it was hot and i didnt understand anything, BUT we had 4 of our investigators come!! im super excited about that!

monday-today we woke up and cleaned the house and did some studying. our water has been back on for a bit! i hope it stays on... later we will take a bus to the city and go to all the cool stores and such :) 

i am doing great and having a blast and i know this church is true! i know i got some emails with questions, i cant remember them, so i will look at them again and send another email with answers. i hope everyone else is doing well!!  i attached 4 pictures, i hope they send! they are of my companion, the airplane, mayara and andersons wedding, and my awfully red/sunburned arm :)

here are my answers to the questions...

being closer to the ocean makes it a bit cooler because there is a breeze here. in central teresina its just dead and super hot. only my companion is brazilian. the other two are americans, so there is still lots of english in the house. he is 18 because only the US restricts boys to be 19 to serve misisons. anywhere else they can be 18. he said here alot of boys cant serve because they get drafted into the military, but he was lucky! i will buy some better food this week too :) it was great to hear from everyone and its too bad that there are some things people are struggling with! i will keep everyone in my prayers! i love you all!

Com amor!

Elder Lambert!

Week 10: Sao Luis

Hello family and friends!

week: already cant remember, companion -- Elder Rindlisbacher/Rais

i am officially sending this from a computer in são luis! i did arrive here safely and i have soo much to say because i traveled on my last prep day! its wierd typing on these computers because it underlines everyword in red because i am spelling them wrong according to portuguese :) i will briefly sum up two weeks ago...

i dry cleaned my suit before leaving because it had gotten pretty gross between traveling and being worn in the heat for temple days. it was more expensive than i was hoping so that was kind of a bummer... we had orientation for all the leaving missionaries (americans and brazilians) and it was all in portuguese. it was also the entire day, so my brain started to feel like it was exploding. it also made me realize that when brazilians talk for real, they talk alot faster than when they talk in class. so, pretty much i learned that i dont quite know portuguese yet :) for the last TRC, we had local members and we taught a family! it was soo cool! we taught a dad and three little girls. it was way fun because it was a little more like the real deal. it was also our last day for gym which was kind of a bummer because i will miss playing volleyball! because it would be conference the following sunday, we found out that we needed to start fasting saturday afternoon during our lunch. i stalked up good, and it was another great fast :) at the sunday night devotional, we had the mission president of the são paulo north mission speak! he was such a great speaker and he was the first black missionary for the church!! crazy huh? afterwards, i was able to talk to him for a bit and asked if he knew tanner paxman because he is serving there. he said he had just had an interview with him and made him a trainer! he said he was doing super well and that everybody loves him. it was really nice to hear that he is doing well. for my last day at the CTM we got to go proselyting in downtown são paulo. it was sooo cool! it was way different than anything else i had seen so far, but it was much tougher too. everyone was in a hurry and didnt want to talk much, but we were able to give out three books of mormon in the hour we were there. we also got to experience the joy of public transportation:) we had to say goodbye to all of our teachers which was way sad. i will miss them lots. irmã pozete said that she would try and be the teacher for nat :) we packed that night and got to bed pretty late. the next morning, we were to be downstairs packed and ready by 4:30 am. it was pretty stressful because our alarm never went off, but luckily i woke up at 4:15. we hurried and made it in 15 minutes, but i realized i missed the tiny drawer under my desk... hopefully they will send me the stuff. there were 11 other missionaries that traveled to teresina that day, so that was fun. we met some missionaries on our layover in brazilia and i think danny gessel was there. i never remember seeing his name, but everyone said he left that day so i would have seen him with the others. too bad i wasnt looking out for him. there was also a nun on our flight who kept looking at me funny, im sure she just wanted to hear about our great church :) now i will start my experiences in teresina.

tuesday: we arrived and met the mission president and his wife and went to a chapel for lunch.the coolest part about lunch was that we got to have guaraná Jesus :) its sooo good and you can only get it around teresina. we went proselyting with some of the mission presidents secretaries which was super fun because we literally talked to every person we saw. it got me very excited for when i get my own area and companion. at night we went to the mission home to sleep. there i met elder smoot which was way cool as well. the room was super funny because we had 10 people sleeping there and the showers were just a shower head over the toilet pretty much which was a hole in the floor for the drain.

Elder Lambert with Elder Smoot (we've been reading his blog since Derek got his call to learn more about Teresina)

wednesday: i got my companion, elder rais! he is 18 and only has been in the mission for 6 weeks :) we will be learning together, but we get along really good and i think we can be a really powerful companionship. later that day we took a bus to a city called timon and did some proselyting there. we taught a family there that was really interested and it was so cool! being a missionary is one of the coolest things ever! i still am no where close to understanding everything, but i listen to what i can and throw in a testimony here and there. i want to start communicating with the people so bad so i can help them!

thursday: we woke up at 5 am to get ready and leave because at the last minute the night before the mission president needed us to stay at another location. we got back to the mission home at about 7:30 after taking the bus. we had a 5 hour training for how to plan. it was super long, but it was good stuff to hear. at 4 pm, we got on the bus and took our 8.5 hour ride here to são luis!

friday: we bought some food in the morning and did all our studying and such. later we had lunch at a members house. it was SOOO GOOD! we had to walk about an hour to get there though :) we went on splits with the other two missionaries we are living with and me and elder iverson had some cool lessons. one really cool experience was that we were trying to find an address and we felt prompted to ask this one guy. he didnt know so he called over a girl with a child and asked her. she didnt know either and elder iverson asked if they were married, they said no, but were living together and have two kids. he asked if we could teach them about the blessings of marriage and how the church of jesus christ blesses families. surprisingly they said yes and we walked over to their house! he taught the law of chastity lesson and we challenged them to get married. they were super interested and said that they would! the spirit was so strong and we knew it had to be there, otherwise people wouldnt make this change in their life. they said they would not be able to afford it because it costs R$150 for a marriage license. we found out he had a smoking addiction and spends about R$30 a week for smoking. we challenged him to stop and save the money to get married and they said they woulld! it was such a neat experience!

Saturday: we had conference which was way cool! we have a stake center about an hours walk from our house, so luckily we could go there. they had a small room where american missionaries could go to listen. i was with 5 other missionaries. later that evening our water randomly turned off, which apparently is normal. we have been showering from a storage of buckets filled with water the missionaries have for when this happens. its pretty fun :) 

Sunday:we had the same conference schedule which was yet again fantastic! also, we met someone there who is an investigator who just saw our church and people going in so he wanted to see what was going on. he listened to the second half of the sunday session and is very interested. we found out he is also in our area so we get to teach him! he is such a cool old guy and asked us to tell him about the Book of Mormon. he is such a golden investigator :)

Monday: so today is pday! we woke up and cleaned the house and bought groceries for the next week. stuff is pretty expensive, so i eat butter sandwiches for breakfast, and ramen for dinner :) later today we will go out and teach our new investigator! im super excited :) 

i love all of you and miss you tons! this church is so great and has blessed me so much in my life! remember not to send anything to ctm anymore because i am no longer there... i will keep you all  in my prayers! i hope everything goes ok with amy and the baby! i didnt figure out how to send pictures today because i had so much to type so i didnt get time, we have an hour now. next week i hope i can figure it out!  i need to go though. I LOVE YOU!

Com amor,

Elder Lambert