Week 49

hello my dearest family!

 

oh how great it was to talk to y'all on tuesday. you are all so very great and we have such a darn good looking family :) so first i would love to thank you all for the wonderful letters and presents. it was super awesome opening presents with my buddies and feeling just a little bit like we were back in america. christmas makes me a little sad here because nobody does anything! thats why it was awesome to be with americans :) we uprooted a tree in our back yard and put it in our house with some lights on it and put all our presents under. christmas day we woke up and we all took turns opening them up and showing to the other what we got. its funny how child like you can be on the mission, but it was super fun. the night before, we sung christmas carols to people who were out on the street, but in brasil, the only people on the street at night are drunk, so that means we sung to a lot of drunk people! it was super funny and they all loved it :) we ended christmas eve night with a big dinner with the zone and the president and his wife. the food was great and it was fun to see everybody. 

sadly this computer wont send attachments.. i tried :( for christmas lunch, we went over to our buddy's house, welton, and we ate lunch there. it was really fun and he loved it too because he just lives with his dad and we wanted some extra company. i brought my pepper grinder to eat with him because he loves stuff like that. he loved it so much that i decided to give it to him as a christmas present and he got super happy :) i love making people happy! later that night we went to talk to our families!! it was super awesome and everyone was there! i didnt know that the entire family would be there, so that was a nice little surprise. later at night, we just talked to one of the members, and then went home. it was a great christmas :)

wednesday was kind of a miracle day for us. we just kinda felt like knocking on doors on this one street just in hope to find some new families. we ended up staying the entire day on one block. we met 4 families that are really cool and lots of people! i dont know if any of them will progress, but we got the important step: finding them! it was a very needed day because we had cut everyone the day before...

friday night, we were working in a different area and some lady gave us some water that tasted nasty... that night i spent the whole night throwing up which kinda stunk and i also had to stay in bed saturday. it was nice to rest, but it stinks when you feel like crap the whole time... i'm better now, but every once in a while i feel like i'm going to throw up.

sunday was really good, but sadly we still havent been able to get our families to go to church! i don't know why they won't go, we have done everything. we will keep working though and try different things.

today is new years eve, so everyone will be drunk, so we will go to members houses to do family nights. i love doing family nights. we still have to go to bed at 10:30, but everyone says that it will be impossible to sleep because of the noise. we will just have to wait to see what will happen...

sorry this email isnt that exciting, but we had to do a bunch of stuff on the computers, so i didnt have much time to write to you guys :(

i totally got denied in the center again today! i went to send my 8 letters that i have written, but the mail center was closed because its new years eve! i still havent been able to send this huge stack of letters!!!

i love you all!

-Elder Lambert

Week 48

hello my dearest family! 

so today is christmas eve and i am super excited! i absolutely love christmas. i had elder davis open my packages to see if stuff was wrapped so we could put it under our tree so don't worry mom, i didn't peak. i saw the picture of dad in italy at christmas time with the snow, so i decided to take some pictures showing where i am at christmas time. i think you will be able to tell from the pictures that i am in a very hot, dusty, and not very christmas looking place. i just know that when i see a cactus, i dont think of christmas. i'm super excited for tomorrow because we all have presents that we will open and it will be awesome! tonight we will gather as a zone to sing christmas carols to inactive members and then have a zone dinner at one of the chaples. we can also stay awake until midnight!!!  my life is getting so crazy now :)
 

this week i braved brasil and took my camera for a day. here are some funny pictures of the things i saw. they include a dog that tried to kill us, i funny metal man (notice we put a book in his hand), a dog skull on the ground, i bench on a cliff, and also i guy who was chopping up and cooking a pig! it was really funny because he owns a bar and there were tons of drunk people there and we asked if we could take a picture and they all got super excited that there were americans taking pictures. i love brasil. they drink beer for breakfast lunch and dinner.

december 21st was also the predicted 'end of the world'. we got a LOT of questions that day. we decided to celebrate it also by buying a pizza! the pizza here is not quite the same, but its good to fill yourself up :) 

something that you guys don't know is that there is a prophet here that has also predicted the end of the world two other times and nothing happened. i'll attach a video. http://globotv.globo.com/globo-news/jornal-das-dez/v/falso-profeta-pode-responder-por-estelionato-e-homicidio/2188643/ at about 1 minute is the best. its when they started shooting gas bombs after nothing happened and everyone was trying to kill him...

 

this week was a little interesting. we were able to teach alot, but all of our good families stopped progressing :( that means we will cut all of them! we will go back to knocking on a bunch of doors this week just in the search of new families. i worked with elder davis the last two weeks and will stay with him probably for the rest of the transfer. elder spackman is now better, but is really busy with problems in the mission. 
 

some news that is really exciting is that we get to go to a post office today! i have a couple letters i will send. i just hope that some of my friends didn't move addresses lately or they wont get them! we will also go to the center to look around. still i havent been there yet. i will look for cool things. i'm super excited to call tomorrow night! thats really all that i can think about right now, so this email probably won't be very long...

 

i am trying to be the best missionary that i can be and make the most out of these two years! i am so grateful for all your love and support. i hope i show it enough sometimes! i love you all and wish you a very merry christmas!
 

Elder Lambert

Week 47

hello my dearest frieds and family!

area: satélite      companion:elder spackman

so now i will respond to all of my mothers questions. and i'm also curious, did you like the format letter of the last email in groups about families and activities, or the day to day things?

So last p-day we had to go to the hospital because elder spackman's eye got worse. we found out his body is too tired to fight off viruses and stuff, so he started to get sick. he was ordered to rest for a week so he has been sleeping at the president's house for the last week just catching up on sleep. he is better now and i think he will get to work with me again wednesday! my legs are also better now thankfully! some great news is that we went to a grocery store in the center that has some items from walmart! i bought 4 boxes of mac and cheese :) i also found a box of pretzels with my name on it!

The baptism of maxwell was awesome! everything almost went according to plan and his whole family went and some friends! it was great to see his family there. he was successfully baptized by elder davis and was confirmed the next day in sacrament meeting. he's a really great guy, and i'm really happy for him :) we will keep working with his parents little by little to baptize them too. 

elder spackman made 1 and a half years on the mission but has sadly never burned anything at the 1/2 year marks, so he caught up with everything this time. we burned a shirt, pants, and a tie all at once. it was a pretty big fire and a cool moment :)

we had an awesome meeting this morning! we had to wake up at 5 to get ready sadly, but it was worth it. elder mazzagardi and his wife came here to our mission (area presidency) and spoke to 3 of the zones here. it was really cool and super powerful to be with one of the 70. it was really fun seeing some of my buddies from a while back. 

sadly, our progressing families weren't progressing too much this week. we still haven't been able to teach aglésio and simone. they are never home when we mark with them. josé and raimunda we were able to teach once, but they didn't take the restoration too well. we need to pass by again to see how their prayers were and clear up some doubts and questions. paulo and sebastiana took the restoration better and with them we still need to follow up also. sadly none of these families went to church :( its so hard when they don't go to church because that makes it so we can't baptize them and it really helps with the conversion!

so with the phone call, i am wanting to do it 6:30 here. i think its a 5 hour difference, but you guys should check. sadly, there is no internet house with skype, so i wont be able to use that. we will use the phone in the church, and you guys will have to buy an international phone card. i heard its really cheap, so it shouldnt be too big of a problem. i dont know how to do it, but my companion at the moment (elder davis) his mom knows. i sent moms cell number to her and she will call sometime to explain it. i still have our phone card if i need to use it as an emergency.

thats so exciting that some missionaries farewells are coming up! thats so so great :) i received a package today at the meeting from you guys that has my swimsuit. i still havent opened it, but thanks! also i received the envelope from amy and jeremy :) im so excited for christmas! with americans it will be super fun! 

this week was really good, but was a little tougher. we were able to teach alot, but our people stopped progressing, and we weren't able to find many new people. it was fun though working part time in elder davis' area though and getting to know some more people. its always interesting here because people are always changing companions, this next week will maybe be an adventure! i love all of you, and am super excited to talk on christmas with you guys! if you have anymore questions, just let me know!

-Elder Lambert

Week 46

hello my wondrous family!

i was very surprised as the first email that i received was a picture of mom and dad in some BEAUTIFUL sweaters. i remember wearing dads sweater to school :) everybody loved it. this was a very very challenging, yet great week. it was very challenging because nothing really worked out too well... and we are both kind of destroyed right now. i had this really weird thing happen to me starting on wednesday. my legs started to kind of hurt randomly, but it wasn't a very big deal so we just kept working. starting friday, they started to hurt really bad and i had no idea what the problem was; it hurt to sit, sleep, and walk. i got a blessing friday night. we continued working the whole week though and they got better today! they still hurt while i sleep a little, but walking is better now. the weird thing is that i have no idea what it is, it feels like they are being super stretched constantly, but a little different. also, on friday, elder spackman woke up with his eye a little bit swollen, it continued to swell a little bit but got better last night. BUT, when he woke up this morning, it was swollen all the way shut. he looks super funny :) we went to the hospital and he had to get a shot in his butt and now he cant walk normally. after this we will go to the hospital in the center to get it better evaluated. and here is a huge spider that was in our house!

sadly, i left my planner and journal at home, so i will tell the week as an overview and not day by day. 

the last p-day, i felt like such a mom. i passed the whole day sewing. my pants were kinda short, so i unstitched them, and did them again. it was a gutsy move, but turned out alright! for sure its not the way its supposed to be done, but its working out fine so far! we were able to teach sebastiana and paulo at night. its such an awesome family because its two families in one. their son is living with his wife in the same house! neither him or his parents are legally married, but after our lesson about families and the importance of marriage, they agreed and got really excited to get married! we just have to settle the moms divorce from her first marriage. a couple days later, we brought a recently married and sealed in the temple couple to share their experiences. it was such an awesome lesson and got them even more excited. this family is the owner of a restaurant and they make us super good snacks when we go over there :) this sunday we had stake conference at the huge church in the center that is two stories, its oh so beautiful. they said they would go, but they never showed up :( we will go back to visit them very soon!

we had a zone meeting on tuesday that was really cool. it was a normal meeting with trainings and stuff, but was a meeting to analyse our numbers. i really like doing this kind of thing and putting everything into numbers. our zone was a little weak but it was cool to see that our numbers were a big contributor to the zones totals. it was the first time meeting as the whole zone so it was way cool talking to everyone. in our zone we have 4 sisters and probably 20 elders. i attached a picture

me and my companion (elder spackman) get along super well. i love working with him and we are such good friends. the work is so great when you can find someone who works well with you, but also someone who is your best friend. we are always talking, joking, and doing really funny stuff. this makes working so much more fun and powerful too. all of our investigators really like our visits. for sure i want to do stuff with him after the mission, i hope we stay together for a while. here is a picture of me and him at the zone meeting.

sadly, we havent been able to teach simone and aglésio all week, the times we marked with them and passed by, they werent home. we were able to find them last night, but they were in front of another house drinking :( we willl get them during the week when they are sober and continue to help them.

we taught josé and raimunda the other day and it was really great. we taught about the power to seal families forever and how it was lost but restored. the lesson was going super great until we tried to play the restoration video and their DVD player didnt work. they were pretty bummed and said they would get it fixed before the next visit. its really hard with them because they are soo great and they have already stopped drinking coffee, but they dont have time to go to church. this is a major problem that we are trying to work out. they are awesome though! they said they would invite some families the next visit :)

the reform is done in our house and it looks sooo much better! i will take some pictures of it next week. sorry i dont have many pictures, this area is just super dangerous and the missionaries were already robbed a bunch of times so im kinda scared to bring it with me. i attached a picture of the before and after of the walls. they were a pretty ugly color...

my room is getting super christmasy for the holidays! its got to be the prettiest room in the misison. i already got the package of the decorations, two that i have to wait for, and mels envelope. i love the present mel gave me :) i laugh every day i open something new. the sheep with jobe's face on it was today and i almost died laughing :) i have written some more letters, but sadly i still cant send them! there isnt a post office here.

we will baptize a young man (maxwell) this saturday. this is somethign that we are trying to avoid now because people were baptizing youth really fast and they were falling away from the church, but this youth has already gone to church more than 5 times, has an active family who is his neighbor, has been to seminary, and actually has a testimony of the church. i know he will stay active and im really excited for him. we will continue to work with his parents (ivaneide and valdinar).

we will keep working super hard this week even with trials. this week was hard, but i felt good because i know i tried my absolute hardest. i lost count on how many doors we knocked on searching for families. i really feel like a missionary right now and i love it :) 

i love you all and wish you the best in everything! enjoy the ski season for me :) 

-Elder Lambert

Week 45

hello my dearest dearest wonderful family!

i bore my testimony about how great you are mother and father :)

this week was an interesting week, not because bad things happened, but because it was just straight up interesting. i have never been so happy working here in the mission. i have finally mastered the vision of how the mission should be, and i'm living it. it is the greatest thing ever! i am not baptizing every day, but i am oh so happy :) i did stay here for the transfer and nothing changed in the area.

monday-for pday i wrote a bunch of letters, but sadly there is no post office here, so i still havent been able to send them... have patience with me people! the assistants werent here, so i worked in elder davis´ area at night. we are starting to get our house reformed THANKFULLY! it is so ugly. after 20 years with missionaries living there, it is not very attactive.. two elders named elder abreu and elder colby showed up to be our companions for a week while the assistants are traveling

tuesday-my day with elder abreu was super awesome! we taught alot and were able to find new families who are pretty good. he taught me a new way of planning that i really liked too that is really effective. a new elite family that we met are named aglésio and simone, sadly they arent married, but they are willing to do anything to have an eternal family :) we went back to the other elect family (josé and raimunda) and shared another lesson with them. she said that she had talked to her friends about how much she loved our visit so we challenged her to invite these families to listen in on our lessons the next visit. 

wednesday-we were able to teach lots of lessons during the day again and help leidimar integrate with a really cool lady who lives close to her. nothing super exciting happened though, 

thursday-we tried to teach aglésio and simone again, but they werent home :( however, we did meet another elect family (paulo and sebastiana). they are way cool and want to be baptized to start a new life. sadly again, they are not married. we have alot of weddings to plan! you can call me the wedding planner :) we had a great meeting with our ward mission leader and made some really good designations and planned an activity for this friday (7th).

friday-we just had a pretty normal day here. some thing very interesting is that we went to the old man's (luís) ex wife so we can settle his divorce so we can marry him! she was like a 75 year old woman who is super cranky and it was so hard for me to restrain myself from grabbing her by the throat. they have been out of communication for over 15 years but she will not sign the divorce papers because she is mad at him because he left her. she just has a grudge, so she wont let him be happy... its really good that she is old or otherwise i would have fought with her. we passed by acelino's house and discovered a miracle had happened! he had worked every other sunday in the morning, so he couldnt go to church every week, but on his new schedule he only works every other sunday in the afternoon! now he can go pretty much every sunday! he was so excited because he was about to talk to  his boss about this, but the lord blessed him greatly for his good desires to obey the commandments. it is so cool how that works. at night i worked with a different elder named elder howe and we were able to go to josé and raimunda's house. they had invited two families to learn with them, but they both traveled :( but it was so cool that they actually invited people! we taught them about the standards of the church along with the word of wisdom and they agreed to stop drinking coffee. they also said that they would go to church 

saturday- saturday we set up a huge map of our area to help us plan more. since this area is super poor and kinda run down, alot of the streets are sand so they arent registered. we had to draw all these streets in by hand, but its beautiful now! also there was an emergency and me and elder spackman had to get a taxi to go to the center to resolve a problem with some other elders. its kind cool being the companion of the assistant. at night we were able to get a couple of lessons in when we got back. 

sunday-we were able to help a less active man who is returning to church right now that was really awesome, also we were able to teach aglésio and simone! they agreed to be baptized and married! we will start working on their marriage plans right now. im so so happy for them!

this week was super great and full of great things. i heard that i got some letters and a package that i will get tomorow. im not sure who its from though!

i lvoe you all!!!

-Elder Lambert

Week 44

hello my wonderful, dear family!

so to respond to the email. thats so cool that mackenzie is going to brasil! she has a temple in her mission! im so jealous. send me her address please. i understand everything now pretty much except for the super weird words. but i can always understand what the person is saying. the word i learned this week is 'mamar'. it means to breast feed... i do dream in portuguese and its super weird, i was talking to elder davis in my sleep the other day. i dream alot that i am teaching people so i will say the lessons while i am sleeping. when i got here i could barely speak english because it would automatically transform into portuguese just by habit. now i always speak english with my comps so its easy again. our house is actually getting reformed right now! i took a video of it but i cant send videos sadly. it was super super ugly before. it will look so nice when the reform is done! i got one package that had the christmas decorations and apple cider and stuff. thanks so much! everything is already set up :) i also got one that says that i have to wait until christmas - can i open it early?! i also got a letter you sent for my birthday, but it was missent to barbados, so it just got here... i laughed when i heard about jobe :)

this week was the last week here in the transfer. we will find out later today about what will happen! i think everything will stay the same here. 

monday-we had an awesome family night with a member family and with the family of valdinar and ivaneide. it was about eternal families and i think it helped them out a bunch. all the kids are great, but the parents have really closed hearts... we will keep working with them though!

tuesday-i did a division with elder souza from são paulo. it was good. we were able to teach a lot of lessons and meet some new families which is ALWAYS a good thing :) 

wednesday-today i worked with elder spackman and we had a really hard day. every single appointment fell through so we ended up walking until 6. at 6 we took a coke break and said a prayer to find a miracle family. as we were walking at about 7 we passed a house and elder spackman felt prompted to stop and knock on the door. they answered and they are a super cool family! they are wealthy and would be great leaders in the church. we talked a lot with them and they said some really cool stuff. we found out that they are willing to follow responses from god which is a really important thing with investigators. they also recognized that we were a response from god in their lives. we told them about the prayer we had and they said that they are never home at the time we passed, but they were doing everything really slow that night so they didnt leave on time to buy groceries. they said it was a miracle and know that god sent us to them. sadly i have not been able to go back there yet, but we will go tomorrow! after we had a really good family night with a family who has some rebellious teenagers and we taught about the importance of building your foundation while you are young and the importance of listening to your parents. everyone liked it and the parents were really happy.

thursday-we worked in elder davis area so i didnt really record what happend...

friday-we worked in elder davis' area again, but we taught maxwell. he is ready to be baptized, but we will still wait a little longer to try to baptize his whole family. we taught the word of wisdom and he said that he already stopped drinking coffee because he heard it in the church one time. nobody told him to or explained it to him, but he did it anyways!

saturday- we baptized acelino! it was sooooo awesome and he loved it. he was so so happy and he said he felt so so good. i had the privilege of baptizing him which was a challenge because he is humongous. it was such a spiritual moment for me and for him. 

sunday-acelino was confirmed and recieved the spirit! he is so happy and i am so happy for him :) he is a great guy. i included some pictures of him, his wife, and his son.

the baptism was so great this week and i was so happy to baptize him. he is a great man and will be a strong leader in the church. i love all of you!

-Elder Lambert

Week 43

hello my dearest family!

i am pretty sure that i am on the worst computer ever... the mouse doesnt work which makes things really really hard... BUT i am oh so happy here in brasil. this week was very good and i am very pleased with my numbers and the people i am teaching. i was able to watch the video you sent me, but sadly this computer doesnt have sound. they look sooo cute together and it made me a little homesick. this week we have been working so much with families that i have really been thinking about you guys. i will try and send you guys a HUGE letter telling you how much i love you :) some good news is that we will baptize acelino this saturday! after a long time of teaching them, he is more than ready. we were hoping to baptize him and his wife together, but she is just not wanting it right now. we are working hard to plan a really special baptismal ceremony for him; we know that if we do everything right she will feel the spirit telling her to do the same thing. acelino is super excited and is inviting all his friends and stuff :) we have also started to do alot more street contacts to try to meet new families. elder spackman has been teaching me alot of things that i am really liking.  thats so cool also that ally will serve soooo close to me! i am so excited for her! she will have to send me a letter or give me her address so i can send one to her. 

monday-we had an awesome familiy night with acelino and leidimar in the house of an awesome member family. the lesson was really good and it really helped integrate them with some of the ward. 

tuesday-we taught one couple about the importance of marriage and they really liked it and said that they would talk to figure out what they will do. we also started to make alot more street contacts. we have a goal to get 50 addresses every week. this is really good for me because it is something that i have never liked/felt all the way comfortable doing. i am learning alot and we are starting to meet some more families because of this. 

wednesday-i didnt really work in my side of the area, so there isnt much that is exciting to report. but we were able to help a couple people.

thursday-today we visited some less active members trying to help them. that was kind of fun to meet some new people. i love talking to the people. i am still amazed that i can talk to people in a different language. it just baffles me!

friday-the couple that we taught a couple days ago about marriage decided that they dont want to get married. i dont really understand why because they already have alot of time living together and understand that it is a commandment. so we cut them.... we were also able to mark a baptismal date with maxwell. he has been to church 3 times already and wants to be baptized right now, but we are trying to baptize more of his family with him so we are waiting a little. i'm so happy that i have the right vision of baptism here and not just baptizing all the kids who dont understand and will fall away. i really want to only baptize family and if i find a kid, i really want to make sure he understands and has a testimony of everything.
 
saturday-we talked a bunch with acelino about his baptism and he is super excited. he started inviting everyone in the street. i am sooooo excited for his baptism. this is definitely my most important baptism yet. we also went to search for families the last couple hours of the day. we prayed to be guided and just started walking and making contacts and knocking doors and found 2 really cool families that we will return to teach!

sunday-we had a very successful day and taught lots of lessons which was awesome. i am sooooo happy right now in the mission and am loving it :) the transfer is coming up here next tuesday, but i know that i will stay here. 

i hope all of you are well! i love you all and you are alll the best :) i love you!
-Elder Derek Romney Lambert!

Week 42

hello my beloved family :)

i am 100% better this week which is awesome. i am learning so much working with elder spackman. i really like the way that he works and we have so much stuff to do! we were able to recieve 20 references throughout the week and we are working our tails off to try to contact all of them. we were also able to meet some new families that are super duper cool. the water only disappeared one time i think, so that was really good and we went the whole week with electicity! God is really blessing us now. its funny that christian said this is one of the hottest places in the world, because i'm pretty sure it is. everyone here talks about how you can take a bus to arrive in Hell :) also that the devil came here one time and said it was too hot and he wanted to return back to his place. its so wierd hearing about all those missionaries getting home and giving homecomings! before i know it, it will be me also. this transfer is going by super super fast. That is also sooooo awesome about the mission calls! its nuts that it was just announced that girls can leave sooner and already people are getting their calls. im so excited for megan, kember, and mcKenzie! Tereré is a kind of drink here. you put this stuff in a cup that looks like grass clippings and you put water on top and drink it through a straw. it looks like something that should be illegal... elder spackman said that he wanted a little surprise for a christmas present :) i was thinking also; i have given away all my shorts and i  would love another pair. here its funny because everyone wears swimsuits as shorts. can you send my my coolest looking swimsuit for me :) one thats crazy, or my DC one. you are the best! 

monday-at night after pday we went to a less active members house to have a little snack with him and talk. he loves to talk about very deep doctrine stuff and its super awesome. one thing the mission has really taught me is how cool the scriptures are. i LOVE studying the scriptures. it is so much fun to look at all the notes and search for stuff.

tuesday-we went to a different less actives house and helped her out alot. she was so happy that we are helping her. we planned a goal to help her get to the temple :) at night we met a new family. they are a married couple that have 4 kids. it is soooo much fun when you can teach a real family. the spirit was there so strong and we taught about eternal families. it was cool because we were able to bring a member lady who lives down the dirt road and they liked her alot. the families names are; Valdinar and ivaneide (parents), mariana, maxwell, mariaclara, and monica.

wednesday- we passed the day teaching today and at night we got to go to the house of the cool family in elder davis' area (conceção and domingos). they gave us dinner which was super good. we spent the night laughing and talking. i have a super strong love for the family and am sad i wont be able to work with them much because they dont live in my area. 

thursday- we did a service project for someone who is unable to work. he had a mini jungle behind his house and we cut everything down and stacked it in a huge pile for him to burn. it was really fun working with machettis and destroying a bunch of stuff. he got super happy and was overwhelmed. i love service :) 

friday-we had another service project this day which was fun also. we helped someone cement their walls so they could paint it. we helped making all the cement and carrying it around and stuff. once again this family got super happy and gave us lunch :) we also had a very successful day. nothing fell through and we met some new people! we were able to meet one couple who accepted to be baptized on christmas and we talked alot with acelino about his baptism. he is ready to be baptized but his wife isnt progressing. we marked a date for his baptism the 24th of this month. we are thinking it will help speed her up and motivate her. acelino is really excited. 

saturday- we were able to mark a date with the lady who went to church the last sunday (maria de jesus) and she accepted to prepare to be baptized on the 8th of december. its really cool to start seeing all the results of our work. we were working super hard, but nothing was realy happening, but this week was filled with awesome stuff.

sunday-we had two families go to church! acelino and leidimar went and loved it. i got so so excited. also, maxwell and mariana, and some other people. our ward has been at about 120/130 as the attendance, but this week was 154! we were able to get lots of inactives there and investigators. i was so happy :) we recieved an enormous amount of references yesterday and everyone got so happy that there were alot of people there. we had a super cool family night with about 30 people  there.

all in all, this week was fantastic! i will work to have every week be like this. i know the lord is blessing me so much in this work and my prayers and your prayers are being answered. thanks for all the love and support! i love you!

-Elder Lambert

Week 41

heeellllo my dearest friends and family!

so this week was a week of lots and lots of work and few results sadly, but it was great all the same. i am just kinda coming over the sickness that i have had for over a week now :( and i got my package mom and loved it! i love the books, they are perfect, and everything else in it! the music also works great! thats so exciting you went shooting! that is an utter nigtmare imagining you and nat shooting guns, but i was happy to hear you are still living and well. so the elections are tomorrow huh? you will have to send me the results next week! the pictures were super cute that amy sent me of halloween. anne and will are so cute together :) i also recognized that jeremy was wearing my clothes, im glad somebody still loves them.

monday-we had a really great p-day with a family where the dad is strugglin a little bit in the church and the mom's sister who is not a member and her husband. the movie was super awesome that we watched. its called fire proof and talks about a marriage that is ending but through effort and god they were able to save their marriage and make it all the better. it had a great message :) and this week at church the whole family was there!

elder davis burning his 1 year mark shirt

tuesday- the district meeting was great and i taught a really funny lesson that all the people loved :) one thing that i have learned alot is how to public speak and teach about anything on the spot. we had a very productive day which was great and at night we had a super awesome family night with our friends who help us out and their family. everyone is kind of inactive or not members and we gave a lesson on agency from a conference talk. they really liked it and i think it went really well.

wednesday-today all of our plans fell through, like EVERYTHING. that was kind of a bummer so we visited members all day to help them out with things and to see how they are doing. they get really happy because none of the old misisonaries would ever visit them, so they like our visits. 

thursday- this was another day where lots of plans fell through, but we had a great lesson with a family at night. their names are domingos and conceição and they have three kids. they were super happy that we came back to visit them and they were all waiting for us. they all have great hearts and i love to talk with them.

friday-today we decided to contact all the old investigators from the old missionaries because we are short on investigators... this was a great idea, but didnt work out. we just walked the whole day and contacted a ton of them with no good results. BUT i know we will be blessed in some way :) at night we contacted a reference that went really well. im not really sure how this family works, but there were four members (i dont know their relation). we also were able to find a less active home that we have been trying to find for a while. he has a drinking problem so we talked about that and happily he came to church this sunday! the power went out again which kinda stunk. here, the power is always going out and the water is always running out too...

saturday-today we also passed by lots of members and some less actives. it went really well and we were inviting all of them to church. at night we went back to domingos and conceição which was great again. i felt a little bad though because they wanted to give us dinner, but we were fasting so we had to decline :( i had a desire though! 

sunday-we had our early morning meetings that went well and church went well too. we had some investigators and some less actives there. at night we taught some lessons, did another family night, and went home to sleep. 

monday-our companions returned this morning! i have only worked 2 days with my companion... we also went to a shopping center to buy something called tereré. its super good :) we have a couple lessons planned tonight that will be super awesome i think :)

the mission is great, and i am happy! i am glad to hear that everything is going great with all of you also! keeop me posted on how you are doing. i wrote some letters, but there is no post office here... i dont know when i can sent them out,,, i hope soon!

i love you all and thanks for the love and support :)

-Elder Lambert

Week 40

friends and family!

so to respond to my mothers questions.

i am not in the mission home, but rather the back up mission home. when the other one gets full, they come here. the other one always gets full so about once a transfer or every other transfer there will be some other people here. my companion who is the AP is from Utah, but the kid i work with the most is from minnesota! his name is elder Davis and we get along really great. the other AP (elder davis´ companion) is from São Paulo. we do get mail more often now, everytime the ap´s go to meet with the president in the office they bring it to us :) i got a bunch of letters recently :) as of now, i cant really think of anybody who needs a christmas package. i think everyone here is pretty good off. but if you would like you could send something and i can decide who to give it to. 

as for me, this week was going great until thursday... ill let you know what happened...

monday- we had a great family night at a couples house who is preparing to get sealed. it was really good because there was also some less actives there and a couple who arent members of the church.

tuesday- we had our first district meeting here and it went really well. i really like my district, its just kinda a bummer because we have to scale a mountain pretty much to get to the other church building. elder spackman left in the morning to travel to a couple places to give trainings to other zones and he will return next tuesday (tomorrow)! at night we went on a division with some ward members that helped us teach a little more. 

wednesday- today was a very interesting day. we didnt end up teaching a single lesson with investigators, but we were able to visit alot of members to help gain their confidence and encourage them to help the ward out. we will have to do alot of small steps like this to try to save this ward. we are encouraging everyone to visit the members less active and help the active members a little more.

me leaving sobral!

thursday-i made nine months in the mission!! time is passing super fast. today was really great at the beginning, but started going downhill at the end of the day. i was teaching really good lessons, but all of a sudden felt a little sick and threw up all over the place. we kept trying to working but i was throwing up more so we went to the house :(

friday-i woke up feeling really awful and it stayed that way through the whole day. the good thing was that we had a great lesson with acelino and leidimar. we watched the restoration DVD and they really liked it. we are trying really hard to help her gain a testimony of joseph smith. at night we had a really good reunion with the ward missionaries.

part of my area!

saturday-i woke up feeling like garbage again today and again we worked! we made lunch in our house which was actually really good! i was quite proud of us :) we taught a 15 and 20 year old couple that we are trying to help marry them. also we had another great lesson with leidimar on how to stop drinking/the importance of stopping drinking coffee. she liked the ideas we had and i think this time it will work! we also taught someone who was baptized 5 months ago but was never confirmed. we went to see what had happened and she was super drunk and said she doesnt want our help... that was kinda sad...

sunday-we had to wake up early to get to a church meeting at 7. i felt even worse this day, but still went! church was very interesting. its kinda hard to see because it is so disfunctional. we will try really hard to help out this ward. at night we walked a ton because all of our plans fell through :( this did not help the little sick boy out very much. 

monday-i am even worse today, but i think its the peak of my sickness. i woke up with a fever and i feel like my head will explode, but god will bless me :) its good its pday. today should be pretty relaxed. we will just do a family night tonight which will be watching a movie about the importance of temple marriage. i hope i will wake up better tomorrow!

thanks for all your love/support/and prayers. it may sound weird, but i can really feel it here :) and good luck to all those who are turning in mission papers!

Week 39

hello my dearest family!

so first of all i would like to tell you what happened with the last
email. so the last pday i didnt even have an hour of time to send
email to family. the reason why i didnt have an hour is because i got
transfered! i am now oficially working in satelite, teresina. even
more exciting is that my companion is the assistant to the president,
elder Spackman! the funny thing however is that i am not the other
assistant... they were just split up so they both have junior companions
but we all live in the same house. they did this so that when they
travel, which is alot, us two juniors will work together and will have
one to know each area so we can switch days in the areas.

last week-the main event was definitely last monday. in the morning we
found out about trasfers and we went to have a huge bbq again at
sombodies house. we bought tons of meat again so
it was really a party. we hung out there for a while and then
afterwards we went to a youth activity that we organized. it was way
fun hanging out with all the youth and great to see them all bonding.
it also gave me a good chance to say goodbye to a good chunk of them.
staying 4 1/2 months in one area gives you lots of time to get really
attached to some of the members. i had alot of people to say goodbye
to and it was super hard actually. after the activity i passed by all
my family friends here, somebody gave us dinner, and another family
gave us dessert. i took tons of pictures, but this area is too
dangerous to bring your camera with you so sadly i cannot send
anything home :( there was alot of crazy stuff that happened earlier
in the week, but i dont remember really... i stayed up super late
hanging out with elder albuquerque and elder bastos just chillin
around and talking.

tuesday-i woke up and finished all my packing and made some last
minute phone calls to my buddies. we made the trek over to the bus
station to wait. i arrived here safely in teresina and went to work!

about now its hard to do an every day summary so i will give a weekly summary.

so the thing is that this ward has TONS of members but VERY few
active.. our goal is to really help the leadership of the ward
understand the importance of their callings so they will actually work
and we will work alot with less active members. we cant work with a
bunch of investigators because we dont have a ward that will support
them after the baptism. we have to strengthen and train the ward so
they can do their part and we can do ours. right now we are visiting
alot of members to gain their confidence and show them that we are
here to work and to teach them how to do their visits with the less
actives. there are a ton of less actives because the other
missionaries came through just baptizing little kids who had no chance
staying active. right now we will only work with the ward or families
who will make a difference in the ward when they are baptized. this
church needs leaders. and that my friends is our goal :) we have a lot
of work to do, but we have the Lord to help us every step of the way!

to respond to my families questions... i sleep in the hammock
sometimes, but not all the time. its really nice to rest in :) that
floral tie sadly is not mine, i was just borrowing it from elder
bastos. im super excited to see what will happen now with this
new age rule. i think it was a great change. and im super glad about
all the other positive news!

thanks for all the love and support! i love you all my friends and
family and wish the best of luck to you all!!!
-Elder Lambert

Week 37

my beloved family and friends(i hope you read this in the voice of the conference guy)

this week was full of fun and adventure, like all the weeks! for sure the highlite of this week was conference. it was super great and super funny because it was just me and elder black watching in a small room alone. we were able to set it up in english which is nice because i love hearing their voices. like always, elder holland gave a killer talk that i absolutely loved. i did find the money in the tie mom, thanks :) also we had interviews this week and got mail! i got mail from my family!!! whoohooo!!! its so great hearing from you guys. i got my package sponsored by grandma, thanks so much! and my package from amy! it appears llike everything is coming through fine which is good. i will also send out some letters today, i was able to find a bit of time this morning! 

traveling to tianguá

the huge chapel there

monday-after p-day we went to our recent convert´s house (bruno) to play uno with him and some youth of our ward. he really liked it and is integrating very well with them. we will continue to do everything we can to help him stay in the church.

conference breakfast :)

my cake that i made

wednesday-we traveled back to sobral in the morning and at night we watched the joseph smith movie with some members and a less active girl. it was a really cool experience and everybody liked it.

thrusday-so our water disappeard which brought back nightmares of são luís... we were supposed to have our interviews at night, but the president was running way late so he told us to go to the church the next morning. someone who had the interview brought my a package i had sponsored by my grandma! it was so great to recieve licorice and jelly beans and the other goodies she gave me :) 

friday-in the morning we had our interviews. it was oh so great. he helped me alot with some questions i had and how i can be a better leader in the mission. he shared some really inspiring scriptures with me that gave me alot of motivation to work really hard. i want to start praying and fasting more to be a more spiritual person. our water came back which was good. we discovered that someone opened the cover on the outside of our house and turned the switch to the pump off.... also i had a very cool chat with elder bastos and we finished the night by drinking a glass of peach juice :)

saturday-GENERAL CONFERENCE! it was so so grat and i loved every talk. its amazing how much faster it goes by when you pay attention and actually look to learn from it. me and elder black watched in english.its so crazy that they reduced the ages that boys and girls can serve missions! i think alot alot more girls will go now. i think it will be a really cool change. also two new temples is always good :) i had my mashed potatoes and gravy that my mom sent me and a tradicional delicous conference lunch. also, we were invited to have dinner at someodies house :)

me with some other elders and a youth

my name tag reflecting someone speaking at conference

tuesday-i gave a training on how to use the scriptures in the district meeting, and afterwards i traveled to tianguá with the elders in my district that work there! every transfer i need to do divisions with all the elders in my distrct, so this day i went there! it was really funny because we got a ride in a tiny tiny van and elder deaver took up two seats almost with his humongous legs. it was crammed full so i was pretty much sitting on his lap. we got there and tianguá is great! its alot colder there! its so cool. its the coolest area in the mission. it was really fun working with elder deaver and elder ribeiro for the day and we spent the night there. in the morning it was actually cold! its the first time i have felt cold in 8 months... it was oh so great! 

sunday-conference was great again :) i loved all the talks and have so many things to work on in my life now :) in between sessions we scored some lasagna from one of the families in our ward which was delicious. after everything, elder bastos played the piano and we were singing lots of hymns with all the missionaries that were there. it was super fun and a way cool experience. 

it sounds like all is well and i hope it will continue to stay this way! i will keep everyone in my thoughts and prayers! let me know if there is anything that you guys want to hear from me!

love,

-elder lambert

me and elder black watching conference