Monday, April 2, 2012

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

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