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